At least it sounded like Greg had gotten a hit on his robberies.
Jane left and heard a ping on her phone as she returned to her desk.
Meet for lunch?Matthew sent.
She had a lot to share.Hope a late lunch is okay. Same coffee shop as last time. 14:00?
See you there.
Time took forever to pass by, but she finally went upstairs, resolving to stare Lisa down if she had to.
The woman was typing madly and didn’t look up when she said, “Quit looming. Just take a seat while I finish this. And be prepared to take notes. I found some weird stuff you’re going to want to look at.”
Excited at the prospect, Jane kept her mouth shut and dragged out her notebook and pen.
By the time Lisa stopped typing and muttering to herself, ten minutes had gone by.
Jane felt ready to explode.
Lisa studied her. “Wow. You are wound way too tight.”
“If you don’t tell me already, I’ll kidnap and torture your fake Birkin bag until it looks like a Walmart knockoff.”
Lisa chuckled and pulled up a file. “Okay, okay. We’ve got some inconsistencies, what looks to me like a pattern of withdrawals, and a name.”
“Seriously?Tell me.”
Lisa gave an evil laugh then turned completely serious. “See here?” She pointed to a spreadsheet, then another, showing Jane several amounts that seemed to repeat before they disappeared for several months.
“From the period of the last three years to just four months ago, the Duvalls made regular deposits that I can’t trace. They also made regular withdrawals and campaign contributions.”
“To whom?”
“Not who? Very good, Jane.” Lisa winked. “To a number of politicians with different political affiliations.” Lisa handed her a printed sheet listing several names. “I managed to get my hands on some of the Coatneys’ financials, and I found the same patterns. But theirs ended just a month ago.”
“Same contributions?”
“Not entirely, though a few names overlap.” Lisa pointed out the names highlighted on a different paper she handed Jane. “Keep it. I’m also emailing you the files. I haven’t gotten the Strands’ financials yet. That’s taking a while. But I’m pretty sure I’ll find a similar pattern.”
“Payoffs to politicians.”
“Yes, and in particular, to a certain lobbyist.” Lisa pointed to a new file she pulled up on her computer.
“Hold on. Stephen Harte?” The Harte name was one of the Collective. “Do you have anything listing him in particular?”
“Let me see.” Lisa ran a program that sped through severalfiles and spat out a list of numbers and dates and names. “Whoa. Looks like your Stephen Harte is at the center of a lot of these payoffs. And look at these dates.”
Jane studied them while Lisa said, “I’m a CSPAN nerd, so sue me. But I recognize these last two dates as when congress met to pass a few important bills. One of which was an eco-friendly measure to stop emissions. The other new term limits for some elected officials.”
“Interesting.” And something Jane intended to look into straight away. “Great work.”
“I’m not done.” Lisa rolled her eyes. “Geesh. I could have just emailed you all that.”
“But then I’d have missed you in all your Birkin-inspired glory.”
“True.” Lisa grinned. “It’s the inconsistencies in the Duvalls’ data that concerned me. I made a few calls and found a hole in their bank’s security.”
“What’s that?”
