Page 18 of Wired Strong

Raveaux’s brows shot up, and he examined his new colleague with renewed interest. “What division?”

“Forgeries and art theft.” Leede seated herself. “You’d be surprised how much of that kind of work involved in-depth accounting reviews.”

“I would not be at all surprised. Now tell me how you would go about tackling something like this current investigation. What did you present to the board member who hired you?”

“I planned to meet first with the accounting firm who does Kama`aina Schools’ bookkeeping. From what I’m given to understand, each school has a bookkeeper staff member. Those monthly reports are aggregated, and each school’s principal has a budget they’ve developed the previous year. Allocations are given during the summer break for the following year. The main pot of funds, filled monthly by the lease payments of the hotels in Waikiki that are on land owned by the Trust, are then administered and managed by a firm, Peerless Accounting. They also do an audit of schools that become financially strained and look for ways to get them back on budget.”

Raveaux made notes rapidly. “Where did the concern about funds come up?”

“There appears to be a discrepancy between the amount that should be in the main budget pot from the leases, and what is distributed to the schools. Several million dollars is missing.”

Raveaux’s eyes widened. “That’s significant.”

“You’d think so.” Leede gave a delicate snort. “But the budget is huge. Close to a billion a year.”

Raveaux sat back in his chair with a creak. “What? For a school?”

“We’ll go visit a campus here in Honolulu so you can see firsthand. These schools teach Hawaiian children with ‘the best potential’ at a college preparatory standard.” She made air quotes with her fingers. “They spare no expense in doing so. The rationale is that the college prep curriculum makes up for any disadvantage the children might have experienced growing up Hawaiian. Because it’s funded by the remains of an illegally seized monarchy, it’s not only a noble cause, but legal to discriminate in supporting exclusively Hawaiian children. Applications to the schools are extremely competitive. Parents do pay a sliding scale fee, but it’s nowhere near the real cost of the education they are receiving.”

“Fascinating,” Raveaux brushed his fingertips over the small goatee he was experimenting with. If nothing else, the springy salt-and-pepper growth gave him something to play with. “I’m trying to imagine how such a thing would work in France.”

“It wouldn’t.” Leede swiped through some apps on her tablet. “Now. My plan is to ask for a meeting with Peerless Accounting and get access to the spreadsheet files and computers used for Kama`aina Schools. I will start combing through those files. You can take any computers we get to Ms. Smithson to work on. I’d like you to help me begin interviews with the members of the Kama`aina Schools’ Board, and I’ll interview the Peerless staff. We can both record the interviews and compare notes.”

“I thought they hiredyou,that we’d be doing everything together.” Raveaux said.

“Not all of the board members were in favor of an outside audit, and they’re the people who make me nervous.” Leede’s bright blue eyes narrowed. “I’ll give you a list of names and contact numbers, and some general questions that I usually ask.”

“Who concerns you the most?” Raveaux discovered that he already felt protective of the petite, sharp-eyed Brit.

“I’ll let you form your own opinions, and we can discuss them once we get underway,” Leede said. “Ready for a field trip to one of the schools?”

“Of course.” Raveaux stood with alacrity. “Lead on, fair lady.”

Leede gave that dry snort of humor, and reached for her valise. “We’ll take my car.”

* * *

Leede’s vehicle was a huge,silver, older model Cadillac. Raveaux almost smiled when Leede climbed onto a booster seat to see over the wheel and he glimpsed pedal extenders so she could reach the controls—but soon, he was clinging in terror to his door handle. Leede drove the beast of a car as if riding an elephant at full speed through the streets of Honolulu.

They reached the outskirts of the city far too rapidly for Raveaux’s taste, and turned into the foothills, eventually entering a long private road marked by tall, elegant gates and signage that marked the campus.

“The five-hundred-acre campus provides an environment conducive to learning, with more than fifty buildings, an Olympic-size swimming pool, tennis courts, and a new athletic complex with a football/soccer field, track, and seating for three thousand. This campus also offers a boarding program geared for students from the outer islands. Kama`aina Schools offers a well-rounded, culturally-based education designed to help students attain high academic performance, positive self-esteem, and personal and community responsibility. This campus serves four thousand students, kindergarten through high school, and there are also schools of similar size on Kaua`i, on the Big Island of Hawaii, and on Maui.”

“You sound like a brochure,” Raveaux teased gently.

“I have a photographic memory. It’s been a boon in my work,” Leede replied.

Leede was full of surprises. He glanced over at her. Sitting on her booster seat, her beringed hands clutching the large steering wheel, she looked like a child. The smooth skin of her jawline and neck told him she was younger than the first impression she’d given; perhaps only a few years older than he was.

Raveaux scanned the property as they drove past the tennis courts, running track, football stadium, and large pool complex into a central courtyard area surrounding a large bronze fountain of a Hawaiian family in a taro field, water splashing among the sculptural plantings. “I see why you wanted me to experience the campus.”

“Nothing beats getting boots on the ground, as they say.” Leede drove through the roundabout with its exits to other campus areas and continued up a smaller tributary road through gracious buildings done in white stucco with blue ceramic tile roofs that reflected the distant sea.

They wound to the top of the grounds, where a three-story building, tucked behind native hardwood trees, perched on the hill overlooking the rest of the school.

“I take it this is the administrative office.”

“You take it right. We’ll meet the president of the board and the headmaster of this school.” Leede pulled the car into a stall; they bounced off the tire guard at the end with a minor whiplash. “Oops.” She threw the column shifter into park. “That was unexpected.”

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