Between a Grizzly and Her Cub: Part Four

Chad and Melissa sat in the latter’s living room. Matthew would arrive home from school in the next thirty minutes, so they worked quickly.

Last month’s banking statement rested, spread across the coffee table. Chad circled all the suspicious ATM withdraws. Melissa could explain none of them. Each came in pairs, every Thursday for the last three weeks.

Each time, a withdraw for five hundred dollars preceded another for sixty.

Chad considered that most ATMs allowed withdraws only in multiples of twenty. Most wouldn’t allow a single withdraw beyond five hundred dollars. Had David meant to withdraw five hundred-fifty at a time?

Had David even made those withdraws?

Chad sighed, sat back on the sofa, and rubbed his eyes. “Anything else?”

Melissa hesitated before she walked out of the room. Chad heard her open and close a draw. She returned, a check in her hand. Someone had ripped the check in half. Someone had also taped it back together.

She handed it to him. “I found this ripped in half in the bathroom trashcan. Someone, David, I imagine, had nearly buried it beneath a few fistfuls of clean paper.” She seated herself beside him.

Chad read the check. “Five grand to someone named Valdus Qasim. Ring any bells?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never heard the name in my life.”

The front door opened. Ten-year-old Matthew entered the house, a Spiderman backpack over his shoulder. He stopped short. “Uncle Chad?”

“Hey, sport.” Chad glanced sidelong at Melissa, whose eyes slid shut.

She’s going to tell her son that his father’s dead, Chad realized. He stood to leave, to grant Melissa and her son some privacy. He held up the check and bank statement. “Mind if I keep these?”

Melissa made a dismissive gesture of halfhearted consent.

Concern deepen behind Matthew’s eyes. Chad wondered if Melissa had already discussed her cancer with him. Would the kid deal with both punches at once? The death of his father and doom of his mother?

Chad wondered what sort of face he wore when he learned his mother would die of liver cancer, back when he stood about Matthew’s age.

Chad kneels besides his mother’s bed, tries to ignore the stench of her bedpan.

Her eyes creep open, gaze through him. “If I still had your father’s financial support, I could've afforded treatment.” Her eyes close for the last time. “If only you hadn’t chased him away.”

Chad spends the entire funeral with his mother’s words in the pit of his stomach.

Ernie adjusted his three hundred-pounds across the plastic chair in front of his computer desk, which he kept, for whatever inexplicable reason, in his basement.

He stared through his glasses at David’s bank statement.

“Can you do it?” Chad asked. He sat in another plastic chair across from Ernie. He had driven straight here after he left Melissa’s home.

Ernie shrugged. “Not legally, but I can do it.” He set the statement next to his computer. “I can run the numbers, identify from which ATMs your brother made those withdraws.”

“How long?” Chad asked.

Another shrug. “This time tomorrow? The statement provides the times and dates of those withdraws, which will help me locate and copy the ATM footage.”

“How much?”

“We’re even after this. All those favors I owe you? Poof. Gone.” Ernie grinned. “Fair enough?”

Chad stood. “More than fair. Thank you.” He turned to leave, stopped. “One other thing? Could you research the name on that torn check?”

Ernie glanced at the check in question, which sat on his desk next to the statement. “Valdus Qasim? Why don’t you just Google it?”

“I was going to,” Chad said, “but . . . I figured you might know a better way to identify this guy.”

“I’ll give it a shot,” Ernie said. “No promises.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” Chad headed for the stairs that would lead him out of Ernie’s basement.

The stairs creaked beneath him. He entered Ernie’s living room, headed for the front door, and patted Ernie’s chocolate-black lab along the way. The dog produced a grateful whine. His tail thumped against the hardwood floor.

Chad’s cellphone rang. He answered.

“Mister Heel.” Redwood’s voice pounded from the phone’s speaker. “We need to talk.”

Chad froze. He heard the lab whine behind him, as if the dog sensed Chad’s discomfort.

“Should I meet you at the police station, Officer Redwood?”

“Detective Redwood, and no. Meet me at your house. I’m there now.”

Redwood disconnected, and Chad felt his stomach fill with hyperactive snakes.

To be continued . . .