Found Money - James Grippando [115]
“Deal.” He rose from behind the desk, leading Amy to the copy machine in the next room. He reached for Amy’s letter, but she pulled away.
“Yours first.”
Ryan didn’t argue. He made a quick copy and handed it to Amy. She shoved the duplicate in her purse.
“Now yours,” he said.
She handed it over. Ryan shot the copy, then reached for the duplicate feeding out of the other end. Amy stopped him.
“Not so fast. This isn’t a one-for-one trade. Where did the money come from?”
His throat tightened. It had been hard enough to tell Norm, his friend and lawyer. Amy was altogether different. Maybe it all went back to the spark he’d felt the first time they’d met, but for whatever reason, what she thought of him mattered. “I don’t know for sure.”
“Where do you think it came from?”
“I think…my father used your mother’s letter to get the money.”
“Used it? What do you mean?”
He removed the copy from the tray. “I’m talking about extortion. That’s where the two hundred thousand dollars came from. And lots more.”
“He extorted Marilyn?”
“Not Marilyn. A very wealthy businessman named Joseph Kozelka.”
Amy stepped back, suddenly eager to leave. “This is getting way too crazy.”
“Just listen to me, please. I know it sounds horrible to say my dad was a blackmailer. But put yourself in his shoes. I think the only reason he became a blackmailer is because he was falsely convicted of rape.”
“Your father was a blackmailer and a rapist.”
“That’s not possible. The only way this makes sense is if he didn’t commit the rape.”
“You wish.”
“It’s mere logic. Ever since I learned about the rape conviction, I’ve asked myself: How does a man rape a woman and then turn into a blackmailer? Could the rapist extort the victim? No way. Unless the rape never happened—and the alleged rapist could prove the victim had made it all up. Your mother’s letter proves exactly that.”
“The only thing this whole visit proves is that I should have listened to Marilyn Gaslow. You Duffys are despicable people, and I need to stay as far away from you as possible.” She grabbed the photocopy from his hand. “And I’m not going to let you use this to prove your phony point.”
“Amy, wait!” He ran after her as she hurried toward the door, grabbing at the letter in her hand and ripping it in half. She screamed and swung at him. He stopped in his tracks. She looked him straight in the eye, her fist clenching pepper spray for self-defense.
Each watched the other, waiting for the next move. Neither one flinched. For an instant, they seemed taken with the irony. It was their parents, after all, who had predestined their meeting, watching from another world as the children moved from subtle flirtation at the Green Parrot to outright confrontation in Ryan’s office.
Amy said, “Stay away from me. I don’t want your money. And I don’t need your lies.” She turned and quickly let herself out.
He felt the urge to follow but didn’t. He’d taken his best shot. He should have known there would be no persuading her. At least he had a handwriting sample—half of Debby Parkens’s letter to her daughter. It was surely enough to allow one of Norm’s experts to verify she’d also written the letter to his father.
He laid his torn copy on the table and flattened the creases so that it would run through the fax machine. He scribbled a short message on a cover sheet, punched Norm’s number, and fed the documents into the slot.
Second thoughts gripped him as the machine slowly swallowed the letter. It wasn’t as if the handwriting analysis would be dispositive. Experts could only render opinions. Neither experts nor Amy could confirm for a fact that Frank Duffy had been falsely accused of rape. Only one person alive could do that. Her name was Marilyn Gaslow. The next chairwoman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve.
The fax machine beeped, signaling the transmission was completed. Ryan stared