He had just emerged from one meeting and was on his way to a second, but he agreed to talk to me for a few minutes. I exchanged greetings with him cautiously, in case he was angry with me again on Lotty’s account.
“Lotty still won’t talk to me. How is she?”
“She’s getting better. The crack is starting to heal and you can’t see the bruises now.” His tone was noncommittal.
“I know she’s back at work—I keep just missing her when I call the clinic.”
“You know Lotty. When she’s scared .she gets angry— with herself for being weak. And when she’s angry she starts driving herself into a frenzy of action. It’s always been her best protection.”
I grimaced at the phone; that was my armor as well. “I hear she’s hired a new nurse. Maybe that will ease some of the tension for her.”
“She stole away one of our best pediatric nurses,” Max retorted. “I ought to disown her for that, but it seems to have cheered her up.”
Everyone has problems when personal and professional lives cross, not just private eyes and cops. The thought reassured me.
“I’ve been thrashing around in my own frenzy, trying to figure out what anyone cared so much about that they had to beat up Lotty over it. And it seems as though all I’m doing is pawing the earth, kicking up dirt, and not getting anywhere.”
“I’m sorry, Victoria. I wish I could help, but you’re out of my areas of expertise.”
“Your lucky day, Max. I called specifically because of your expertise. Do you know anything about Hector Beauregard at Chicago Settlement?”
“Noo.” Max drew out the word slowly. “My wife was really the one who worked with the group. Since her death I’ve continued to support them financially, but I haven’t played an active role. Hector’s the executive director—that’s all I know about him. We both belong to a group of directors of nonprofit organizations, and I see him there occasionally. He seems to have expanded Chicago Settlement’s finances greatly, bringing in important corporate donors—I’ve been a little jealous of his fund-raising prowess, to tell you the truth.”
“Have you ever thought he might have done something, well, unethical, to raise money?” I rubbed my toes again as I spoke, as if to squeeze the answer I wanted from them.
“Do you have some evidence he’s done so?” Max’s voice was suddenly sharp.
“No. I told you I’m just pawing the earth. His name is the only unusual thing I’ve turned up.” Besides the spools of copper from Paragon Steel, but how could those be connected to the head of a big charity? Maybe that was how he got big companies to contribute? Sell each other goods they didn’t need, then load them on trucks in the middle of the night and sell them on the sly and collect the proceeds? Too farfetched.
“Could a not-for-profit collect money illegally?” I asked.
“Anyone running an institution as strapped for cash as mine has fantasies,” Max said. “But whether you could really execute them without the IRS catching on? I suppose you could do something with stock—get it donated at a high price so your donor could claim it on his income tax, then sell it at a low price so you could claim a loss, but still collect the income. But wouldn’t the IRS find that out?”
I felt a little catch of excitement in my diaphragm, the lurch that a hot idea can give. “Can you find out something for me? Who’s on Chicago Settlement’s board?”
“Not if it means one of them is going to get beaten up for being involved in your shenanigans, Victoria.” Max’s voice wasn’t altogether jocular.
“I don’t think even you will be beaten up. And I hope I won’t either. I want to know if—let’s see—Richard Yar-borough, Jason or Peter Felitti, or Ben Loring sit on their board.”
Max repeated the names to me, getting the spelling right. I realized I didn’t have the CEO of Paragon Steel— he would be more likely than his controller to sit on an important board. My Who’s Who in Chicago Commerce and Industry was down in my office, but my old Wall Street Journals were in front of me on the coffee table. While Max made impatient noises about needing to get to his next meeting I thumbed through the back issues until I found the story on Paragon Steel.
“Theodore Bancroft. Any of those five. Can I call you at home tonight?”
“You’re ready to jump into action, so everyone else has to too?” Max grumbled. “I’m on my way to another meeting and when I get out of that I’m going home to unwind. I’ll get back to you in a few days.”
When Max hung up I continued rubbing my toes absent-mindedly. Stock parking. Why not bond parking? What if Diamond Head was getting Chicago Settlement to take its junk at face value, then letting them sell it—at a steep loss, but still, they’d have money they didn’t have before?