I do great with tips.
He opened another drawer. “Let’s see if she keeps her tax returns here. Be interesting to know how she categorized her employment.”
He found a paper-clipped stack of Visa Gold receipts that he examined as I looked over his shoulder.
Six months’ worth of records. Lauren had charged only a handful of purchases each month: supermarkets and gas stations, the campus bookstore at the U. And bills from Neiman-Marcus and several designer boutiques that amounted to 90 percent of her expenditures.
Dressing for the job . . .
No motel or hotel charges. That made sense if she’d paid cash to avoid leaving a trail. Or if someone else had paid for her time and lodgings.
The bottom dresser drawer yielded another stapled sheaf. “Here we go,” he said, “tucked in with the cashmere sweaters. Four years of short forms . . . Looks like she prepared them herself. Nothing before that — everything started when she was twenty-one.”
He scanned the IRS paper. “She called herself a ‘self-employed photographic model and student,’ took deductions for car expenses, books, and clothing. . . . That’s about it. … No student loans, no medical writeoffs … no mention of any research gig either. . . . Every year for the past four, she reported fifty thousand gross, deducted it down to thirty-four net.”
“Fifty thousand a year coming in,” I said, “and she manages to invest every penny?”
“Yeah — cute, isn’t it.” He moved to the closet, opened a door on a tightly stacked assortment of silk dresses and blouses, pantsuits in a wide array of colors, leather and suede jackets. Two fur coats, one short and silver, the other full-length and black. Thirty or so pairs of shoes.
“Versace,” he said, squinting at a label. “Vestimenta, Dries Van Noten, Moschino — ‘arctic silver fox’ from Neiman . . . and this black thing is . . .” He peeled back the long coat’s lapel. “Real mink. From Mouton on Beverly Drive — hand me back those Visa receipts. . . . The average is agrand or so a month on threads—that’s less than one of these suits, so she had to be spending more, had cash she didn’t declare.”
He closed the closet door. “Okay, add tax evasion to her hobby list. . . . Over three hundred grand saved up by age twenty-five. Like Momma said, she took care of herself.”
“That first hundred plus the three fifty-thousand deposits is two fifty,” I said. “Where’d the rest come from, stock appreciation?”
He returned to the brokerage papers, trailed his finger to a bottom line. “Yup, ninety thou five hundred and two worth of ‘long-term capital appreciation.’ Looks like our girl played the skin game and rode the bull market.”
“That would explain the lie about having a job at the U,” I said, feeling a sad, insistent gnawing in my gut. “When she was arrested in Reno at nineteen, she called her father for bail money, claimed she was broke. Two years later, she deposited a hundred thousand.”
“Working hard,” he said. “The American way. She didn’t call Mom because Mom was poor.”
“That and she might’ve cared enough about Jane to keep secrets.” I took the brokerage packet from him, stared at zeros. “The first hundred was probably money she saved up. When she turned twenty-one, she decided to invest. I wonder if it came from multiple clients or just a few high rollers.”
“What makes you wonder?”
“A long-term client could be the reason she didn’t take her own car on Sunday. Someone sent one for her.”
“Interesting,” Milo said. “When the sun comes up, I’ll check with taxi companies and livery services. Gonna also have to canvass the neighborhood, see if anyone saw her getting into a car. If she was hooking up with some pooh-bah who wanted it hush-hush, he wouldn’t have had her wait right in front of her apartment. But maybe she didn’t walk too far.” He whipped out his pad, scrawled furiously.
“Something else,” I said. “Being in a cash business—wanting cash handy for expenditures—she could’ve been carrying a lot of money in her purse.”
He looked up. “A high-stakes mugging?”