Solomon. "I didn't notice any red flags but I didn't dive too deeply either."
"For a bank manager, I guess I expected him to be more savvy. Why doesn't he have any investments? Say, a rental property or stock shares? A larger savings balance? I would have assumed he planned ahead to enjoy a more luxurious retirement."
"Perhaps he simply enjoyed what he had when he had it? If you find out anything that raises suspicions, tell me immediately."
"Sure," I replied. I took the file back to my desk and moved the Takahashis' out of the way. I needed time to think about the information I gathered but also to focus on something else for a while. Hopefully, Austen was too busy conferring with his wife's doctors about her recovery to wonder about my next check-in. Looking into Charlie Sampson was the perfect distraction to refresh my mind.
I already had a headstart, thanks to Solomon's notes, so I didn't need to dive into more research into his financials or his true address. There were a few notes regarding his wife, and two grown-up children who had long since moved out. The wife worked as a librarian and earned a steady income. Solomon noted Charlie's career was solid but far from extraordinary and after dutifully climbing the banking career ladder to become manager, he just plateaued.
There was nothing about Charlie's personal life, which only made me curious: what kind of man was he? I doubted a man his age would be a social media user but I typed his name into a search engine anyway and waited to see what came back. I was pretty sure he wasn't a rodeo champion bull rider so I added “Montgomery” and this time, he popped up in the images function. I clicked on that and found a couple of small news articles. In the first one, Charlie was photographed with his wife after winning some kind of small cash prize. The caption beneath their image read, "Local couple Charlie and Sandy Sampson's surprise win on their anniversary." Charlie's arm was around Sandy's waist, and both of them were smiling happily. The second was from a talk Charlie gave to Montgomery's Amateur Coin Collecting Society on the topic of the evolution of American coins. The accompanying photo had him surrounded by several men and one woman as he proudly held up a rare coin that a member of the society discovered in their backyard and sold for a very large sum.
Something about the article made me read it again but I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was. Certainly not for how exciting it sounded. His whole talk seemed more like a snooze fest to me. All the same, I clicked the link for Montgomery's Amateur Coin Collecting Society website and prepared to die of boredom. Five minutes in, I was almost there. Not only was the website black with an eye-watering, yellow font but it was also entirely disorganized. It appeared to have been written by someone unable to get to the point. Wading through a couple years of blog posts that mentioned Charlie more than once, I noticed that some featured a snapshot of him and his personal collections. Apparently, he gave two other talks to the society and conducted a short summary of excursions the society took to the Museum of Fine Arts and the Money Museum of Boston. That ended my research. Who knew so many people were that interested in rare coins? The only time I ever had any interest in them was when I didn't have enough change for the parking meter.
I clicked back to the article about the coin that fetched a large sum. Apparently, it was sold through an auction house in New York. Out of curiosity, I clicked on the auction house website and searched for the listing. Six months ago, the sale apparently caused quite a buzz when a large West coast museum won the bid. I scribbled the sum on my notepad and briefly wondered what I would do if I were to suddenly receive so much money. It was crazy how a single coin could be worth so much.
"Oh," I breathed, the light bulb switching on at last. Of course! How could I have missed it? "Solomon!"
Solomon ducked his head around the door. "Yes?"
"Can you bring me the log from the bank vault?" I said, waving him over. "I've got it!"
"Sure." As Solomon moved to grab the list I made and I waited,