“That’s the problem. Dru is such a sweetheart, she gets sucked into all these wild causes and J. C. is the worst. Was she like that in high school?”
This was going to get tricky. It didn’t seem that Whitney was setting her up, but Max couldn’t quite tell. Fortunately, she knew the basics about Dru’s family life. “I’m a couple years older. I was friends with her sister.”
“How is Gina?”
Max shrugged. “We lost touch when she moved to L.A. We just keep up on Facebook.”
“I know. My best friend, Tiff, she got a full-ride scholarship to play volleyball in Texas. I never see her, we never talk. It’s like I don’t exist.”
Bitter. Best friend going to a four-year college, Whitney stuck at a community college and working to pay her way.
Max said, “I’m going to leave a note for Dru, but I have to run.”
“If you come back tonight, just be quiet. Amy and I have to be at work at six, so we crash early.”
“Promise. Thanks.” Max went back to Dru’s room. She sat down at the computer and looked for any e-mails from a J. C. She found nothing. She went back to the browser history and found Dru’s Facebook page. She was still logged in—a bad but easy habit to get into when one didn’t share a computer.
She scanned all Dru’s friends and found one that matched.
J. C. Potrero, San Mateo. She clicked through and found pictures of him, Dru, and others at a variety of protests and parties.
J. C. Potrero’s page indicated that he was the owner of DL Environmental, the business that was depositing nearly $9,000 a month into Dru Parker’s account in small, hard-to-track amounts.
Maybe this scheme had nothing to do with Jason Hoffman’s murder.
Or maybe it was the reason.
*
Max sat in her car down the street from the legal address for DL Environmental, which was a mail drop. She pulled up all the information she could find for the business on the Internet. DLE appeared to be an environmental watchdog group that gathered petitions on a myriad of causes. They seemed to be advocates of all things green, but it was all surface—she couldn’t find anything specific that they had done other than write letters and petitions to politicians. They solicited online donations and had a fancy Web site, but no substance.
She called a friend of hers in Washington, D.C. Shelley Abbott, a legislative aide, had a finger on the pulse of all things environmental.
“Shell, it’s Max.”
“Maxine?” Shelley squealed. Then she laughed. “It’s been three, four—no, seven—months since you called me. You must want information.”
“You know me too well.”
“Too damn well. Some day, I’m going to tell you to fuck off.”
“I know too many of your secrets.”
“That you do, Maxie.”
Max cringed at the nickname Shelley knew she hated. They’d gone to college together and used to have brutal arguments about nearly everything, which Karen had mediated. Karen’s murder had hurt Shelley as much as Max, and Shelley was one of the few people Max still talked to about Karen. Max loved Shelley like an annoying but fun sister; she was pretty sure Shelley felt the same about her.
“What do you need?”
“DL Environmental. It’s an activist group in California.”
“Never heard of them, but they’re really a dime a dozen. It’s not one of the big groups.”
“Can you check your database?”
“It’s Sunday night.”
Max glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Four in the afternoon—seven in D.C.
“Sorry, babe.”
“Don’t call me babe.”
“Don’t call me Maxie.”
Shelley sighed. “Yeah, yeah, I’m getting off my ass and walking to my computer. What are you up to?”
“I’m in California for a funeral.”
Shelley’s voice softened. “I’m sorry.”
“Old friend I haven’t seen in a long time.”
“Still.”
“Thanks.”
“Okay, I’m logging into my network. DL…” she typed, mumbling to herself. “I have nothing.”
“Nothing nothing?”
“I have the group logged as a tier seven.”
“You’re talking in-speak again. Pretend I can’t read your mind,” Max teased.
“Sorry. Just my personal shorthand. That means they’re a letter-writing group. No ties with any state or national group. I suspect they’re run out of someone’s house. Don’t give political or nonprofit donations. They are a registered nonprofit, which is the only reason they’re in my system at all.”
“You’re not helping.”
“Tell me more.”
“A guy named J. C. Potrero says he’s employed by them.”
“Maybe.” Max heard the shrug in her voice. Shelley continued. “A lot of these little groups will raise money for a local issue, like saving a park or protesting a development that impacts a river, things like that. They hire someone, usually a relative or friend of the organizer. I wouldn’t call them a scam, but the employee does little more than maintain a Web site or organize a letter-writing campaign. Nothing illegal, nothing that helps except for their one pet cause, often they’re absorbed into a state group when it’s done. But there’s nothing on DL or this Potrero person.”
“What if I told you that DL was depositing between eight and nine thousand dollars a month in a college student’s account and then that student was sending a wire transfer of almost the same amount out to another group?”
“Sounds like money laundering to me. Why don’t you call your hot Cuban G-man? What’s his name? Marco. Even his name sizzles smoothly off the tongue.”
Max laughed. “He’s not my hot Cuban, not anymore.”
“That’s what you said last time he pissed you off. And the time before that. And—”
“Cool it, Abbott.”
“Touchy.”
“I can’t think of a reason for the money laundering,” Max said to get the conversation back on track.
“Could be a fund-raising scam. The FBI would be all over that if you get a whiff of something underhanded.”
“Maybe,” she said, thinking. Very possibly right, but then why the laundering through Dru’s account?
“I’ll dig around if you want. Where in California?”