“Quite right”—Felicity lifted her chin—“because I went to a great deal of trouble to hide my origins and my accent so further assumptions couldn’t be made. So nothing would stand in my way.”
“Ambitious.”
“Always. And it worked.” She smiled suddenly, pleased at how absolutely it had worked.
“I can see that.” Cooper’s expression became thoughtful. “So as someone who’s on the edge of the same stratosphere as the Rosalind Stones of this world, tell me: why would anybody rich steal $1.4 million? Does that make any sense at all?”
“It does make sense, sadly. Here’s the funny thing about people: no one ever asks the powerful how much is too much or the rich when they’ll stop accumulating wealth. It’s just a given they’ll keep doing it.”
“I suppose so.”
Felicity settled back deeper in the couch. “Assuming addiction issues aren’t involved, there are only three reasons I can think of to steal when you’re already rich: To be even richer—the motive being purely greed. To be more powerful—a side effect of having great wealth. Or to minimize or hide a loss you’ve taken elsewhere.”
“The third one,” Cooper said. “Hypothetically, let’s just assume that’s what’s going on. Because Harvey is neither greedy nor ambitious. So is he hiding a loss he’s taken elsewhere?”
“You’ve said he doesn’t gamble or do drugs,” Felicity said. “Are you sure?”
“I’d be shocked if he did. He says he sees the pain it causes our clients, and he’d never wish that on his worst enemy.”
“So he might be hiding something else. I think I’m tired of waiting for answers. I’m calling Thomas, who’s been looking into Living Ruff’s finances.” Felicity reached for her phone and selected a number.
“While you do that, can you point me to your bathroom?” Cooper rose.
Felicity pointed out the door in question as her call was picked up. “Thomas? Felicity Simmons. I can’t help but recall asking for your work-up on Living Ruff to be done by Tuesday. It is now Thursday.”
“Oh.” The man made a faintly strangled noise. “Ms. Simmons, yes. I was going to send you something on Tuesday, but I thought it better to dig a little deeper before submitting my report.”
“You found something?”
“Quite the opposite. I can see why Peter’s preliminary investigation found nothing amiss. But the more I dug, the odder it was.”
“Explain.”
“I have never in my life seen a charity so pared down to the bones that spends so much on its practical works. I can’t find expenses for much in the way of office supplies, computer upgrades, or anything you’d expect of that nature in the past ten years. It’s not normal.”
“Well, Living Ruff does have the oldest computers I’ve ever seen still working. They don’t even have flat-screen monitors.”
“Is that so?” Thomas paused. “That helps make sense of things. I’d thought Living Ruff might be lying on their 990 forms and hiding expenses, even though it’s perfectly fine for charities to spend money to effectively run themselves.”
“No, I think they really do throw their whole focus and money at the practical side. The animals.”
“How novel.” Thomas made some tapping noises. “Well, because it looked too good to be true, I started investigating Harvey Clifford’s family to see if there were any irregularities in their various business holdings.”
“And you found some?”
“Actually, no. His family has no investments that I can find, which makes sense, given they’re all somewhere between working poor and middle class. They have no money to invest. On Harvey’s wife’s side…” More tapping. “Rosalind Stone’s enterprises range from above average to excellent. Her only investment that has even a slightly less than solid turnover is a sporting goods store run by Rosalind’s brother, Charles Stone. Charles’s main claim to fame is selling high-quality collectibles of baseball players…and nightclubbing like a frat boy.”
“How does any of this help us?”
“It doesn’t really. I’m saying that no one in Harvey’s life has any bad investments that need propping up, not even the party sheep in the family.”
“So we’ve got nothing.” Felicity frowned. “Everyone’s squeaky-clean.”
“Which in itself is a statistical anomaly, I’d like to point out,” Thomas said, sounding pained. “It’s surprising to find any second-generation, filthy rich American family where no one has gone off the rails.”
Felicity laughed. “No wonder you were suspicious. So where does this leave us? A good charity run by someone with no skeletons in the closet, and we’re still missing $1.4 million.”
“I’m sorry to say I’ve done all I can. I don’t know where the money went, and we won’t know until the next time Living Ruff files its tax documents. Unless Harvey Clifford gets chatty in the meantime.”
“That doesn’t seem likely.” Felicity tapped her lip. “I don’t know why he won’t answer any questions, if everything’s aboveboard.”
“Well, he won’t have much choice soon. One thing I can promise you is, with a donation that big, he’ll be required by state law to get an independent audit before he files his 990 this year. If he’s spent all of Ms. Bartell’s money on anything at all, the purchase will throw up red flags with the auditor because it exceeds the three-percent rule.”
“The three-percent rule?”
“It’s a rule of thumb in auditing. A guide. You look at a charity’s gross revenue, and if a purchase is under three percent of that, it’s seen as typical for an organization of that size and assets base. The more you spend above three percent, the more likely it will attract attention as being out of the ordinary. For Living Ruff, specifically, that means spending $21,000 or less to not attract attention. Not $1.4 million.”
Felicity blinked. “Well, I can see why that would stick out like a sore thumb.”
“Yes.” Thomas sounded satisfied. “Harvey won’t be able to hide for long from the auditors.”
“That’s some comfort, I guess. So otherwise you’ve come up empty?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“All right. Thank you, Thomas.”
“Good day, Ms. Simmons.”
