Family Money(21)

Sliding open the middle drawer of my desk, I found where I’d stored Joe’s cell phone. After powering it up, I began scrolling through his contacts for the name Ethan Tucker. Joe had called him an old friend. So I was surprised when I came up empty-handed. Joe did not have the name in his phone.

Opening my laptop on my desk, I did a quick search grouping Joe Dobson with Ethan Tucker. But nothing appeared with that direct connection. I hopped onto LinkedIn and searched for Ethan Tucker in Dallas. Several matches popped up, including candidates like a lawyer, an accountant, a banker, and a financial adviser. I started with the lawyer, searched online for the law firm where he worked, found the main phone number listed on their website, and made my first cold call. A friendly woman answered.

“Clareview and Marshall, how can I help you?”

“Hi, I need to speak with Ethan Tucker, please.”

“May I ask who’s calling?”

I thought about that for a moment, then said, “Joe Dobson.”

I figured if this was the same Ethan Tucker who’d wired the money, giving my father-in-law’s name might actually get me on the phone with him. Otherwise, I could easily get brushed off. I didn’t want that to happen.

“One moment,” she replied.

I stared at the lawyer’s profile page on the firm’s website. He was probably in his midforties. Curly hair and kind of pudgy. Undergrad at Virginia Tech. Law school at Georgetown. Specialized in corporate securities.

A few seconds later, the guy was on the phone. “This is Ethan.”

His subdued greeting led me to believe he didn’t know my father-in-law. There was not a hint of recognition. Still, I pressed forward.

“Ethan, this is Joe Dobson. How are you?”

“I’m fine. Do I, uh, know you, Joe?”

“Well, you should. You wired me five million dollars three years ago.”

I said it with a casual chuckle, trying to be disarming. But he didn’t bite.

“Uh, I’m sorry, but I think you’ve got the wrong guy here.”

“Wallow House. The Caymans. Does that ring a bell?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

I believed him. I quickly apologized and hung up. I moved on to candidate number two and did the same thing with an accountant named Ethan Tucker who worked at a big firm. I called the main line and got put through to him. But the results were about the same. This guy clearly didn’t know anything about my father-in-law. I moved on to the banker but only got a voice mail. I would try again later. I finally hit up Ethan Tucker the financial adviser, who was a partner at Lone Star Financial. The firm’s website showed a gray-haired man who was probably around the same age as my father-in-law. He’d earned a finance degree from Southern Methodist University and then a master’s degree from Wharton. I again ran through my spiel with the receptionist and claimed to be Joe Dobson.

I knew I had something the moment he got on the phone with me. The man spoke with a hushed urgency. “Damn, Joe. It’s been over a week already. And why the hell are you calling my work phone and not my cell phone?”

“Ethan, this is not Joe. My name is Alex Mahan.”

“What . . . Who?”

“I’m Joe’s son-in-law.”

He paused, then: “What is this about?”

“I had some questions I was hoping you could answer for me.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Well, three years ago, you wired my father-in-law five million dollars from an offshore account in the Caymans—”

“Who told you that?” he abruptly interrupted.

“The bank did. I just wanted to know—”

He interrupted me again, clearly agitated. “Why’re you calling me?”

“Like I said, I have questions about this money because my father-in-law invested it in my company. I’m looking for the rest of it.”

“Then ask your father-in-law.”

“Joe died a couple of days ago.”

Another pause. “How?”

“He was abducted and killed while we were on a trip to Mexico.”

Ethan cursed. I found it unusual that Ethan had waited to express himself this way until after hearing how Joe had died. Was I reading too much into that?

“How did you know Joe?” I asked him.

The tone of his voice softened. “I can’t talk about this with you, Alex. This is . . . dangerous.”

“What? Why?”

“Look, I’m truly sorry for your loss. I am. Joe was, uh . . . I, uh, I gotta go.”

“Wait? I need to know more about that money.”

The phone line went dead. I couldn’t believe it. He’d hung up on me. Why? It was the second time in the past twelve hours someone had hung up on me in the middle of a conversation about Joe’s death. Irritated, I again called Ethan’s financial firm, pretended to be someone else with the receptionist, just to see if I could somehow get the man back on the phone. I thought about how Ethan had answered my first call: Damn, Joe. It’s been more than a week already. He had clearly spoken with my father-in-law recently. About what? Was it related to the money? After placing me on hold, the receptionist came back on the phone and told me that Ethan would unfortunately be out of the office the rest of the afternoon. I hung up in frustration.