Read Online Canyon Secret by Patrick Lee - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Patrick Lee
Tags: historical thriller
Ads: Link
calls for a large crew working through the middle of September.
Other items of interest are as follows:
First of all, the federal auditor will be here next Tuesday to begin his month—long audit of the books. Make sure your payroll, time cards, overtime, everything is up to snuff. Our office people only give what you tell them.
Number two; I’ll meet with two FBI agents here on Friday. I don’t know what’s that all about, but I’ll fill you in after I meet with them.
Number three; Hungry Horse will operate before October 20th of this year. President Truman will be here to throw the switch on the first two turbines. We can expect lots of newspaper, magazine, radio, and secret service people starting to show up on site. It will be wild around here in late September.
Scalf signed the memo and took it to his secretary and said, “Mary, please run copies and get them distributed today. Also, send a copy to Al Sutter at the Hungry Horse News .” He walked back to his office and put on his rain slicker. Before leaving he stopped by Mary’s office again. “Oh, and Mary, I’m goin’ into Columbia Falls to give my respect to the Dick Curtain family. Dick was the man who died yesterday in the logging accident. I’ll stop and pick up some groceries for them first.”
The next morning David Sednick scanned the memo from Superintendent Scalf. His eyes stopped on the item about the federal auditor coming next week.
The telephone on the wall in the foreman’s shack rang and shook David from his deep concentration on the Superintendent’s September 27th memo. He picked up the phone. “Hey Dave, how about a beer after shift tonight at the Blue Moon? We need to sit down and talk about Scalf’s memo and the auditor’s visit next week.”
David’s stomach turned as he answered, “Ya, ya that’ll work. How about 5:00?”
“Great. We don’t have anything to worry about, do we?”
“No. Everything’s fine. See you then.” He hung up the black wall phone and walked out to the back porch of the shack. From there he stared toward the backside of the partially cloud-clad Columbia Mountain. He took a deep breath as he thought.
The reality of his extra source of income frightened him in the beginning, but after two years of stockpiling thousands of dollars from his commission, the scheme no longer frightened him. Now the fear roared back into his mind. Every two weeks, he deposited two-thousand dollars into savings accounts in various banks around the Flathead Valley. David didn’t know the source of the laundered money, and he didn’t want to know. He followed instructions and collected his commission.
The man on the other end of the telephone recruited David two years ago to become part of his fraudulent scheme. David also received a walking boss job in addition to his commission for processing the checks.
David devised his own scheme for making additional money. He processed five bogus, fictitious workers with employee records, timecards, employee numbers, and non-existent payroll deductions. Each pay period he handled all of the paychecks for his shift. Now the whole thing might surface with the auditor reviewing the payroll records.
Panic stricken, David mulled over his mistake. “I just had to do it, didn’t I. How in the hell will I account for five extra men on the payroll for May and June? I need time to think. He’ll have my ass if he finds out. I just have to find a way to cover the last two months.”
CHAPTER TEN
I t was Tuesday morning and the Care Less Group broke with their Friday morning tradition for breakfast at the Club Café. The fundraiser dance to purchase the resuscitator for the volunteer fire department was only five days away. The four women sat around the corner table cluttered with lists and bags of decorations. Betty Hansen tapped her water glass as she attempted to bring the group back to the tasks at hand. The other three women talked at the same time. No one
Other items of interest are as follows:
First of all, the federal auditor will be here next Tuesday to begin his month—long audit of the books. Make sure your payroll, time cards, overtime, everything is up to snuff. Our office people only give what you tell them.
Number two; I’ll meet with two FBI agents here on Friday. I don’t know what’s that all about, but I’ll fill you in after I meet with them.
Number three; Hungry Horse will operate before October 20th of this year. President Truman will be here to throw the switch on the first two turbines. We can expect lots of newspaper, magazine, radio, and secret service people starting to show up on site. It will be wild around here in late September.
Scalf signed the memo and took it to his secretary and said, “Mary, please run copies and get them distributed today. Also, send a copy to Al Sutter at the Hungry Horse News .” He walked back to his office and put on his rain slicker. Before leaving he stopped by Mary’s office again. “Oh, and Mary, I’m goin’ into Columbia Falls to give my respect to the Dick Curtain family. Dick was the man who died yesterday in the logging accident. I’ll stop and pick up some groceries for them first.”
The next morning David Sednick scanned the memo from Superintendent Scalf. His eyes stopped on the item about the federal auditor coming next week.
The telephone on the wall in the foreman’s shack rang and shook David from his deep concentration on the Superintendent’s September 27th memo. He picked up the phone. “Hey Dave, how about a beer after shift tonight at the Blue Moon? We need to sit down and talk about Scalf’s memo and the auditor’s visit next week.”
David’s stomach turned as he answered, “Ya, ya that’ll work. How about 5:00?”
“Great. We don’t have anything to worry about, do we?”
“No. Everything’s fine. See you then.” He hung up the black wall phone and walked out to the back porch of the shack. From there he stared toward the backside of the partially cloud-clad Columbia Mountain. He took a deep breath as he thought.
The reality of his extra source of income frightened him in the beginning, but after two years of stockpiling thousands of dollars from his commission, the scheme no longer frightened him. Now the fear roared back into his mind. Every two weeks, he deposited two-thousand dollars into savings accounts in various banks around the Flathead Valley. David didn’t know the source of the laundered money, and he didn’t want to know. He followed instructions and collected his commission.
The man on the other end of the telephone recruited David two years ago to become part of his fraudulent scheme. David also received a walking boss job in addition to his commission for processing the checks.
David devised his own scheme for making additional money. He processed five bogus, fictitious workers with employee records, timecards, employee numbers, and non-existent payroll deductions. Each pay period he handled all of the paychecks for his shift. Now the whole thing might surface with the auditor reviewing the payroll records.
Panic stricken, David mulled over his mistake. “I just had to do it, didn’t I. How in the hell will I account for five extra men on the payroll for May and June? I need time to think. He’ll have my ass if he finds out. I just have to find a way to cover the last two months.”
CHAPTER TEN
I t was Tuesday morning and the Care Less Group broke with their Friday morning tradition for breakfast at the Club Café. The fundraiser dance to purchase the resuscitator for the volunteer fire department was only five days away. The four women sat around the corner table cluttered with lists and bags of decorations. Betty Hansen tapped her water glass as she attempted to bring the group back to the tasks at hand. The other three women talked at the same time. No one
Similar Books
