Chapter 3

For herself, Lydia was aware that she was making zero progress on the main task at hand. She decided that the reason for that was that she still didn't know enough to know what to look for. She headed to the county library, to see what they had on computer crime. There were quite a few titles listed in the card catalog on the subject and two of them were on the shelf. She spent the next couple of evenings reading them.

When Lydia started her sixth week at Valley she had some more ideas of what to look for, but no real confidence that she would know what she was looking at, if she found something.

The one obvious thing she had checked at once. No, the company hadn't been writing Jeff King any large checks. There were a few small ones, but they matched all the way through the system with small petty cash expenditures he'd made. They totaled less than a hundred dollars in a year.

Another thing she'd read about that sounded possible was where bogus purchase orders were issued, the goods received, then "sold out the back door." In the example in the book on computer crime, the perpetrator had been caught by accident. The owner of a company had been short of a product and placed an ad in a local paper to see if he could buy some used. When he received a circular with a long list of equipment and a familiar name on the letterhead, he smelled a rat and investigated. The bad guy had gotten away with it because he'd taken the stuff from the original packing cases and sold it as is, leaving the original boxes, now empty, to gather dust on the shelf.

Lydia ran a query over a number of big-ticket items in the inventory where the orders exceeded sales, sorted by location. The store in Tucson had a dozen and half models of stereos, TVs and VCRs that they bought more than they sold. She was surprised at how easy it was to see and how quickly it showed up. The numbers were egregious; anyone should have spotted them. According to the report, the store had a hundred or more of some items that they would never have carried more than ten or so in stock at a time.

She looked at the perpetual inventory for those products at the store and was surprised to see that the stock level was what it should be. There was no surplus apparent on the books. It was only if you looked at what the store bought and what they sold could you see a problem. Eventually she realized that she'd left out inventory adjustments. When she looked at them, the Tucson store's adjustments were all negative, but the numbers came out just fine.

It took a bit, but she expanded her query. Every month or so, there were a dozen or so negative inventory adjustments from that store. There were a number of explanations given in the description column, none of which looked unreasonable -- unless you saw a list with everything on it. Then it looked unreasonable.

That night she picked up the phone and called Jason.

"Lydia!" he exclaimed, sounding happy. "I'm sorry I haven't had much time to talk to you. I want to thank you for your help in solving our problem!"

"Jason, I was only a spear carrier. You and Tom did the real work. But I want to talk about another mystery."

"You found something about King?" He didn't sound as happy as he had been a few minutes before.

"No, actually not." Then she explained what she had found.

For a moment after she finished there was dead silence. "Lydia, tomorrow morning I want you to bring those reports to me. Put them in with my stack of daily sales reports. You deliver those anyway, so just set them on my desk with everything else. I have meetings all morning, but I'll look them over at lunch."

She did as she was told and heard nothing back. Two days later the office was agog with the news that the manager of the Tucson store was in jail, along with one of the office clerks, a woman he'd been sleeping with, even though both of them were married to other people.

The next day Jason called her into his office and closed the door. "Lydia, I don't know how to thank you. I don't know about Jeff King, but Herman Thurgood, now that was something!"

Lydia shrugged. "I don't see how Jeff can be doing anything. I don't know how he got the money he has, but I haven't found any way he could steal it. There are too many checks on what he does."

They talked a little while longer about the problems they'd had. Jason was quite apologetic about having taken the credit for having caught Thurgood. "I realize you did everything, everything," he told her.

She laughed. "You did one thing Jason: you hired me. I didn't do what you wanted, but I found someone else. You don't need to apologize."

A little while later, Tom was telling her not to apologize. Rico needed a trip to the dentist because he'd broken a tooth during football practice. She apologized for having to leave; Tom told her not to be silly. And then he went on to say that she was working yeoman's hours and she shouldn't apologize about needing to take care of family business. He told her not to bother to come back, that she should take the rest of the day off.

As she walked out to the van she realized she felt immeasurably good. For the rest of the day she felt like she was walking on the clouds. The only dark spot was the realization as she lay in bed that night before going to sleep that she hadn't done what she'd set out to do. Until that moment she hadn't realized how much that rankled.

Lydia dreamed that night -- horrible, terrible dreams. She woke up several times, each time trying to chase the goblins away. Early in the morning she dreamed she was in a bank and Jeff King handed her a check to cash, a check from Argonaut Manufacturing, one of Valley's biggest suppliers. She handed the check back to him, saying that since it wasn't made out to him, he couldn't cash the check. It was illegal, she remembered saying over and over. Finally he shrugged, leaned down and wrote under the endorsement for Argonaut, printing his own name.

"Okay, here," he told her.

She refused again and he grew angry.

The bank manager appeared and looked at the check. "No, this appears in order. Argonaut is a big company; their checks are always good. Mr. King has been a valued customer here for years. I'm sure everything is fine." He initialed it and another teller began to count money into King's hands. Lydia was furious, screaming and shouting that Jeff King was a thief. She was ignored; everyone kept saying how everything was legal.

When she awoke, Lydia felt calm and rested. She knew. She knew beyond any shadow of a doubt in her mind. She had not the foggiest idea how Jeff King had convinced the bank to go along with it, but she knew what he was doing at Valley Electric.

She took a shower, dressed, and left a note for the others, and was at the office by six thirty.

Lydia ran a couple of reports off the database. The report that was clearest was the one from the bank, a check reconciliation report of the payables checks. It listed checks the company had written by vendor and the vendor's invoice number. She'd checked what reports they normally ran: a numeric list by Valley's check number was all they generated. Nothing else. She printed up the report by supplier's invoice number and looked at it.

At first she was disappointed -- there was nothing wrong with the checks to Argonaut. But, she spotted one error a few seconds after she started looked at the report. In five minutes she'd run a yellow high lighter through five check numbers. Five different companies, five different amounts. Five hundred twelve dollars and some odd cents, three thousand two hundred and ninety-five dollars, five thousand eight hundred dollars. Fifty-two thousand plus, seventy-six thousand plus. November, February, April, June, July. August? The check was probably not back from the bank yet. She was willing to bet Jeff King was no longer skipping months like he'd done at first, back when he was testing the water.

Jason came in a little before eight; she was waiting for him. He sat down at his desk with a question on his face and she closed his office door and handed him the printout. He looked it over and finally looked back at her. "I assume that there is something special about these checks?"

Lydia nodded. "This report is by the individual vendor, by their invoice number," she explained. "The computer won't let you enter the same invoice number for a vendor twice, but Mr. Wilson frequently wants to break up some of the larger invoices and pay them over two or three months.

"Jeff King runs photocopies of the original invoice and Mr. Wilson notes on each how much to pay. The documentation is attached to the invoice and everything is photocopied. I sat there in his office and watched King do it a half dozen times the day I was there. I was," she said with a grimace, "amazed to find out that Valley had the same bill payment policies that I'd found the A/R people were so irate about our customers using.

"These stand out. I matched them against the real invoice amount and these invoices were partially paid one extra time. The usual way he does it is to add a dash and a serial number, one, two, three, to fool the computer. These are examples of checks where he used a space instead of a dash and repeated a number. We overpaid the vendor, but I don't think the companies got the money from the extra check. I think King has convinced a bank to let him set up an account for these companies and deposited the money into the accounts. Since he has signature authority on those accounts, he could withdraw the money anytime he wanted."

Jason hardly looked up from his inspection of the printouts, even when he began to talk.

"In every culture, yours, mine, even Mr. Wilson's, there are proverbs and fairy tales to make moral points," Jason said sadly. "Invariably one of those is to be careful about what you wish for -- you might get it."

He sighed. "I am not sorry that I asked you to help. I merely regret there was so much to find." He pushed back from his chair. "You will have to excuse me. I have a little research to do, and then I have to see Mr. Wilson."

Lydia went back to the computer room and sat staring at the terminal in front of her.

It was strange. Growing up, there had always been goals and challenges. In grade school it was promotion to the next grade and getting good grades along the way. Then in high school it was the prospect of college and the tests to get there. In college there was graduation and graduate school, more tests, grades, grades, grades and finally there was a thesis, a degree and then a job someplace. But always there had been a goal on the horizon.

Now she sat and contemplated nothing. Her future was newly devoid of intent or purpose. She'd come to do a particular, short-term task. She'd done it, succeeding beyond her hopes -- certainly beyond Jason's expectations. Now she was finished with that task and there was nothing to look forward to.

Lydia loved computers; she liked programming. She loved problem solving, both the day-to-day problems and the big one that had brought her here. She was smugly confident that she'd solved it. She felt very much like how she would feel after Thanksgiving dinner -- full and replete. She didn't want anything else. It was hard to organize her thoughts.

Did she want to work as a business applications programmer? It was interesting, but how long would it take before she got bored? A year? Two? She had a horrible weight hanging over her head: she didn't have to work. If she felt put upon, if she had trouble getting along with people she worked with, what incentive would she have to stay and work it out? It was sobering.

Lydia noticed when Tom came in and went into his office. She tried to busy herself on her latest project. After an hour or so Tom came out and sat down next to her on one of the swivel chairs that graced the computer room.

"Lydia, part of my job, at least as I see it, is knowing everything that goes on in the computer. I've noticed from time to time some very whimsical job names that you've run tests under."

It came to her in a flash. She'd left the print runs from early this morning on the system!

Tom went on without noticing her sudden consternation. "This morning's weren't whimsy, were they?"

She winced. She had been early; no one else would have normally seen them. "GOTUSUCKER and GETALAWYER," he supplied the job names for her.

"I've noticed before that you had an interest in more than the day to day run of the business. Jason told everyone that it was a routine inventory that found out the fiddle in Tucson. But I thought it odd that you ran jobs named RATS and MORERATS a few days before the story broke."

He stopped talking and looked levelly at her.

She had promised Jason she wouldn't say anything. But this man had been a friend, and if he was involved she would personally eat her hat. Then she saw an elegant solution that said what she felt needed to be said, but didn't say a thing. "This is something you'd have to talk to Jason Fong about," she said as levelly as she could.

He looked at her and nodded slowly. He got up and went down the hall, only to return shortly.

"Jason's in a meeting with Mr. Wilson. Nita told me that they weren't to be disturbed." He looked at her piercingly. "Let me guess, Jeff King's been playing games, hasn't he?"

"Tom, I can't talk. And even if I could, what could I say? I found some transactions I think might be bogus. I don't know anything for sure. All I have are suspicions, just suspicions."

He nodded. "Well, I guess I need to stop asking questions, shouldn't I?"

It was important to Lydia, so she spoke up. "Tom, I've never lied to you about anything. A couple of times I omitted some things, but no lies. Never. You have been the kindest, most decent person I've ever worked for."

"I thought you said this was your first job?" That might have hurt, but Tom had a twinkle in his eye when he said it.

"That too, but you know what I mean."

"I think I do. Well, I've had no complaints -- at least up to now. You've sat around all morning mooning about this and that. Buckle down and get to work!" They both laughed and he went back to his office.

Lydia went home early that day and took a long hot shower, long enough to run out the hot water, something she would never have done before. Finally she curled up in the living room on the sofa with a good book, some very sharp cheddar cheese and a small glass of wine. Somewhere around four thirty or so in the afternoon, she fell asleep. The kids tiptoed around to let her sleep and she finally awoke a little before nine, feeling much better.

She braced herself mentally for what she expected would happen the next day, but nothing did happen. Tom was called into Jason's office for a long meeting and when he came back to the computer room he stuck out his tongue and made a rude gesture and went into his office, both of them laughing.

The next day when she came in Tom handed her a pink slip of paper. It would have fooled her if she lived in fear of the pink slip, but all she saw was something written on the back of a phone message form. "Lydia. Go see this man this morning. It's company time, take as long as you need."

The note read simply: "Detective Andrew Reed, Phoenix Police Department. Sixth Ave and Washington downtown. AM preferred."

She sighed and went back out into the morning traffic.

She had never been in a police station in her life. This one looked like any another office building downtown, except you had to feed a parking meter quarters to park. Inside she was given a plastic badge that said VISITOR and an escort upstairs to the office she was supposed to go to.

Detective Reed was, she judged, in his late thirties or early forties. He looked trim and fit, no different than most of the management level employees she saw every day at Valley. He motioned her to sit down and she was asked if she wanted coffee, which she declined.

"Miss Hernandez, this is in the nature of a preliminary interview. I will take notes, but you needn't be nervous. I want you to tell me in simple terms about what you know in regards to the possible diversion of money at Valley Electric."

Lydia told him about Sarah telling her about Jason having a problem, and then swiftly filled in the subsequent details. She did all of the talking, the detective simply sat, writing occasional notes. When she finished, he spent a few moments writing before looking back at her.

"Now I'm going to ask you some simple, yes-no questions. Please do not try to expand on an answer, I am interested in a simple yes or a simple no."

She nodded and he made a mark on his notes.

"Did Jeffrey Simpson King, in your presence, ever tell you that he was diverting funds from Valley Electric to his own use?"

"No."

"Did you ever see Jeffrey Simpson King divert funds from Valley Electric to his own use?"

"No."

Lydia thought she could see where this was leading, but she wasn't sure if it was simply pro forma or not. She waited expectantly for the next question.

"Thank you very much, Miss Hernandez. You have been most helpful and very cooperative."

She left in a daze. Seven weeks and a bit of her life, summed up in thirty-five minutes. She'd been "helpful" and "cooperative." She wanted to spit.

Jason wasn't happy; Tom wasn't happy. She wasn't happy. The whole thing was, Lydia thought, a major letdown. Nothing was as she expected.

It got worse. After she got back to the office from the police station, she walked down the hall to the computer room and saw Jeff King standing at the water cooler, talking to some of the women in the office. He nodded and said hello, and Lydia continued walking, angrier than she had ever been in her entire life.

Jason was sitting with Tom and Tom waved to her to join them.

"Jason has apologized to me on his and your behalf," Tom said as she sat down. "I'm not angry at either of you, I want you both to know. I don't know what I would have done in Jason's shoes, probably something dumb."

"Why is he still here?" Lydia waved down the hall, she was, she had to admit, outraged.

Jason looked uncomfortable; Tom looked disgusted.

"No one can prove anything," Jason said finally.

"No one saw him take anything or do anything wrong. The bank where the checks were deposited doesn't know anything about anything. Evidently they've broken a zillion different banking rules and don't have the slightest intention of admitting so much as the time of day. The money was taken out in cash; nobody remembers by whom. Jeff King never put cash into his personal bank account. He says he was lucky a couple of times in Vegas. He actually has IRS papers from a couple of casinos showing he won money gambling. Nothing like the amount involved, but enough to make it look like he could be telling the truth."

After a week, the investigation was essentially over, so Tom told her. Some of the clerical employees were irate at the "persecution" of Jeff King, and every day she would see him sitting at his desk or standing around, talking to people. From the way he greeted her, evidently he didn't know who had fingered him. It was, however, personally humiliating for her to see him.

Jason called Tom and Lydia into his office and explained the latest status of the case. "The police say that since there is no direct proof of his involvement, they cannot file charges. It would be possible for civil charges of fraud to be filed, but in order to do that the victim has to come forward. Our insurance company, our bank's insurance company and the other bank's insurance company are all involved, plus lawyers from all the parties.

"No one is going to claim to be the victim, because that means they will be the lucky one stuck with the entire loss. What's going to happen is that the sundry insurance firms will split the loss, and from now on Valley will pay higher premiums. We also have to include some additional controls in our payables."

"And King gets away free?" she asked Jason, stunned at the idea.

"Well, not entirely. I wanted to fire him, but he threatened a racial discrimination lawsuit. Our lawyers don't think we have grounds to fire him, since there are no charges. Instead, as of today, he's demoted to file clerk. I've hired two people who will each have part of his old duties and who will also work part time for A/R as collectors."

Tom had, she thought, been prepared for it.

Lydia wasn't prepared. She nearly came out of her chair. "Demoted to file clerk?" she demanded incredulously.

Tom quipped. "At least he's not the new owner. That would have really been tough." She glared at both of them.

Tom sighed. "I'm sorry, Lydia; I apologize. I'm angry, too. But what can we do? Life goes on. Which brings us to you." He paused for a moment.

"In spite of this and that, I want very much to keep you on. I've talked it over with Mr. Wilson and Jason, and both of them agree with my proposal. If you stay, you'll get an immediate twenty percent raise, promotion to assistant manager of data processing and Mr. Wilson will go over the details with you, but you would be eligible for the management incentive plan. That includes stock options and an annual cash bonus. The stock options right now aren't worth squat, but if Mr. Wilson does retire and sells the company, they will be worth a bundle. The bonus, well, that's money in the bank. Mr. Wilson has petitioned the board and they have granted you an immediate fifteen percent cash bonus of your new salary. That's nearly three thousand dollars. The regular annual award would run twenty to thirty percent of your salary, depending on your performance and that of the company."

Lydia looked at him with disbelief in her eyes. "I came here to do Jason a favor -- I just wanted to help a friend. I've been drawing a paycheck for weeks now under false pretenses. I don't need more money, for heaven's sake!"

Jason had been sitting quietly and now broke his silence. "Lydia, I'd like you to take the rest of the day off and go home. Rest, relax, and think about things. You've done everything I've asked of you; everything Tom has asked. Mr. Wilson is very impressed, more so when he found out what you were really doing and that you did it. He wants you to stay; I want you to stay. Tom wants you to stay. But it's your choice."

She talked with them for a few minutes more and then went to her desk to collect her purse. As she was walking out the door, the receptionist handed her a phone message from the policeman, Reed, asking her to call him whenever it was convenient.

Police headquarters was more or less on the way home, so she stopped off without calling ahead. Again, the procedure was the same, though this time she got to sit and listen to Detective Reed talking on the phone about some obscure legal rules on a case before he got around to her.