Chapter 7

Chapter 7

When Goren opened his eyes, he noticed that it was lighter than it usually was when he woke up. He turned over and saw Eames, still asleep next to him. Remembering those last moments before he had fallen asleep the night before, he had a moment of certainty, the way he did on a case when the culprit's motivation became clear in his mind. This is how things should be. They should be able to support each other, the way they always had, really.

This certainty was immediately followed by a huge dose of doubt. What exactly could he give Eames, anyway? A decent life, with his Dickensian relatives in tow? Maybe this was how things should be, but he didn't see how they could be. Yet, as Eames opened her eyes and smiled at him, it was clear that they had somehow grown closer, in a way that they probably couldn't undo.

"Thanks," he said. "For last night."

"Just returning the favor. It's already 7:30. Can we take your car in?" Goren made coffee, while Eames showered. As he handed her a cup on his way to the shower, Eames was again struck by their easy domesticity. She didn't know how he felt about last night, beyond his immediate gratitude. Today, thought Alexandra Eames, who paid her bills the day they arrived and had color-coded reminders of family birthdays in Microsoft Outlook, today I will go with it, whatever it is.

When they arrived at 1PP, a beaming Josh Simmons greeted them.

"I've gone completely over Carl Roth's records. Nothing remarkable until a month ago, when he took 20,000 out of his savings account. His spending, though, doesn't seem to have changed. I can't figure out where it went."

"That's interesting, Josh. Our investigation has taken a sort of turn. We have another person involved – Rebecca Stone. Her financial reousrces might be quite involved. She also works in finance. We don't know so much about that world, so we'll be counting on you." Josh's eyes widened.

"I'll get right on it, Detective." As he scampered off to the conference room , where several fileboxes awaited him, Eames felt a pang that they couldn't give him the accountant's equivalent of a Scooby Snack.

Ross came over to Eames' desk.

"What do you have?"

"Today we're going to talk to people at Rebecca's old firms. We have leads on friends and family."

"Am I the only who's disturbed about how little attention the murder victim himself is getting?"

"There just isn't much there, Captain. He had few friends, worked hard, and looked after his mom. Not much in his financials, except this mysterious withdrawal. Ballistics came back on the gun, 9 mil., not in the database – surprise, surprise."

"We also still don't know whether Rebecca is a victim, a perp, or a witness. She's the key to this, Captain," Goren stated firmly.

"She'd better be."

Walking into the Hastings Hedge Fund was like stepping back in time. Dark, carved wood paneling and prints of the Old Masters adorned the walls. Eames and Goren were all the more surprised by the youth of the person who greeted them. Haley Milton couldn't have been much more than 25.

"You're the Head Analyst?" said Eames, in disbelief.

"As of a few months ago. You said this is about Rebecca? Has something happened? Are she and Cal alright? "

"Cal? You mean Carl?" asked Eames.

"Cal as in Calvert Hastings. This is his fund. He's the CEO and managing partner and Rebecca's the CFO." Haley paused as Goren began rummaging through his portfolio. "We suspect they're also together, you know, although they haven't said anything explicitly. They've both been on vacation the last 6 weeks. When Rebecca called in and said they were both going out of town for a couple of months, we kind of assumed they were together."

"Isn't it kind of unusual for your two, you know, top dogs to go running off for two months?" asked Goren

"Well, yes. Cal had been working so hard though, and this fund was his baby. Every day, he'd come in and say 'The sky's the limit!' He managed all of the investment decisions himself, well, he and Rebecca. We'd give him input, but he really handled the portfolio himself." Haley paused to take a folder from a young man with peach fuzz. "I think he really got the portfolio the way he wanted it a couple of months ago. Rebecca calls in to monitor it every couple of weeks. We are just sending statements to clients, who seem happy."

"You're doing well? The rest of the market isn't." Haley smiled

"We're a hedge fund, Detective."

"That's like a private investment club, isn't it." Eames smiled as Goren went into his "Clueless Cop" mode.

"Exactly. Because we're private we can invest more widely in more diversified assets. We can take advantage of opportunities that public funds can't," said Haley, with the satisfied certainty unique to those in their twenties.

"Without all of those pesky regulations," interjected Eames.

"We take greater risks, but we also earn greater returns."

Eames called in a subpoena for Rebecca's computer. Goren decided to step out of earshot. When she returned, he pulled the Lexis-Nexus articles about Rebecca out of his portfolio. Above each line item about Rebecca was another one, indicating that Calvert Hastings had been named to a higher position at the same firm.

"I thought that name was familiar. He was her mentor," he said thoughtfully.

"So her rabbi brings her here, with this staff that's barely shaving? By the way, uniforms went by our address of record for Calvert Hastings. Not there, and doorman can't remember having seen him in the last month."

Their next stop was Rebecca's, and Cal's, previous employer. Parker Braithwaite was a modestly sized, but very old, investment banking house. Despite the firm's age, their offices were modern and well-lit. Ross Lathrop, one of the managing partners, met them.

"So you're looking for Rebecca? She hasn't worked here in eight months. Is everything alright? Have you spoken to Cal?"

"Not yet, " said Eames. "How long had she worked here?"

"She and Cal came over six years ago. Thought we would have them forever, but that was before the stroke."

"Mr. Hastings had a stroke?"

"Just under a year ago. He made a pretty complete recovery within a couple of months, but it made him…restless. He said he felt confined here, so when they left to start their own hedge fund, I wasn't surprised."

"How are they doing?"

"Word has it that they are doing fine. Of course, their client base is small, but Cal always preferred a more intimate setting. That's why we got them from Draper Brothers, which was too large for Cal's taste. "

No one at Parker Braithwaite had spoken to Rebecca, or Calvert Hastings, in months. Leaning against the counter at a corner deli, Eames sighed in frustration, as Goren took his pastrami on a Kaiser roll and her pasta salad with red peppers from the counterman. Her phone beeped – a text from Jeffries: Rebecca Stone's mother's address. Goren looked at the sky.

"Nice day for a drive to Connecticut."