Held in Trust

0:00 The Rain Quits the Hills, Holmes Reads the Tinfoil

0:04 Watson: From the case log. May, two thousand thirteen, Los Angeles. Tuesday the twenty-first, and the rain had finally quit the hills above Echo Park. Our converted craftsman house smelled of wet cedar and pork. A taco-truck cook I'd stitched on Saturday had paid me in carnitas. Holmes was reading the tinfoil like a treaty.

0:26 Holmes: Your patient parks on Sunset for lunch and Alvarado by dusk, Watson. Watson: From a scrap of foil. Holmes: A parking stub pressed into the grease, Sunset. And this salsa is the evening batch. Still sharp.

0:40 Watson: Trucks post their route on Twitter, Holmes. I'll settle this before you finish chewing. Holmes: You're consulting a telephone to argue with a taco.

0:49 Watson: And you're eating my half while I do it. Holmes: Evidence is consumed in the testing. Watson: Thief. Here it is. "Lunch on Sunset, dinner on Alvarado." Blast it.

1:02 Holmes: Yes? Levian: Mr. Holmes? It's Mrs. Levian. Forgive me. I'm in my car, at the bottom of your steps.

1:11 Holmes: It's been a year. What's happened? Levian: I haven't called my lawyer. I— I called you first.

1:18 Holmes: Then tell me what you'd have told him. Levian: A bank in Beverly Hills swears it never sent the page that woke me at midnight. And Friday I— on Friday I sign for a new building.

1:28 Holmes: Keep the engine running, Mrs. Levian. Give us a moment. Watson: Well?

1:33 Holmes: Banks lose their own paperwork every day, Watson. A widow fighting one needs a lawyer, not me. Watson: Then go down and tell her that.

1:42 Holmes: And bill an old client for the privilege? I won't. Watson: Think about it. Banks keep banker's hours. So a bank's page wakes her at midnight, and that same bank swears it never sent it?

1:55 Holmes: Your memory is a very irritating instrument. Watson: You've crossed town for less, Holmes. Last month it was a parakeet.

2:03 Holmes: The parakeet had an alibi. Watson: Naturally. And this?

2:08 Holmes: This is a woman alone in a cold car. Coat. Watson: The carnitas?

2:16 Holmes: Bring them. She'll want feeding. And the truck, after all that?

2:21 Watson: You were right. Don't gloat on the stairs. Case log, same evening: the foil was right, the dishes stayed in the sink, and we went down to the car.

2:36 Nine the Next Morning, Offices High Above the Boulevard

2:41 Watson: Kashani kept his offices high above Wilshire Boulevard, and at nine the next morning Mrs. Levian led us past his bookkeeper, Cyrus, hunched over a ledger. Kashani: Mrs. Levian. Come, sit. And you bring Mr. Holmes, no less.

2:57 Levian: Mr. Kashani, Mr. Holmes is here because escrow closes Friday. I need my money by Thursday, or— Kashani: You will have it. You will. As I told you Monday, it's a delay at the bank. One signature, lost in some back office.

3:11 Holmes: A delay in what? Money held untouched shouldn't need to— Kashani: To travel? You think money sits in a drawer. It sits in a holding account, under four names, and banks keep lawyers for every name.

3:24 Holmes: Four names. Three more families waiting beside her, then. Kashani: Patiently. And the bank has promised you proof, in writing, that every dollar is there.

3:35 Levian: Paper doesn't close escrow. Holmes: Cyrus, that's the same column twice since we sat down. Same answer both times, and you didn't like it either time.

3:46 Cyrus: It's... no, it's fine, I just do the loans, Mr. Holmes, the holding account's the bank's, I never even see it — Kashani: Cyrus. Enough. You see? Even my bookkeeper frets for her.

3:57 Cyrus: I never touch it. I— that's all I meant. Levian: Friday, Mr. Kashani.

4:02 Kashani: Friday. I held your hand at your husband's grave, my dear. Have I ever failed your family?

4:11 A Glass House, Her Late Husband Smiling From Every Wall

4:14 Watson: Her house in Westwood was glass and quiet, and from every wall her late husband smiled down at the three of us. Holmes: You let him have the last word, Mrs. Levian. You never do. What does Friday truly cost you?

4:29 Levian: I'll count it for you. My husband's building on Pico. Forty years he kept it. Last year I sold it.

4:36 Watson: And the government wants its share. Levian: Unless I buy another building. Until I do, the money must sit untouched with someone we trust.

4:45 Watson: That's him, isn't it? Beside your husband at the wedding. And again here, at the country club.

4:51 Levian: In our community, Doctor, everyone trusts him. Four families sold. Sixteen million dollars, all with him.

5:00 Holmes: And if Friday passes? Levian: I lose the new building, and the tax on the old one comes due. With money I don't have...

5:08 Watson: Good Lord. Holmes: You count those families like debts of your own. You brought the other three to his door.

5:16 Levian: Two of them; the third came on their own. But four families, Mr. Holmes, and I'm the one who vouched for him...

5:25 Down the Hall, a Beige Machine Humming on the Desk

5:29 Watson: Down the hall, her husband's study stood as he had left it, save for a beige machine humming on the desk. Holmes: Every fax machine keeps a diary of its calls, Mrs. Levian. Print me the last week of it.

5:42 Levian: There, it's printing. My husband's machine. I keep it only for escrow papers.

5:48 Holmes: One page received all week. Twelve midnight, the night Kashani made you his promise. So that's the machine's clock, not your nerves. And this chair faces the machine. Not the desk. You were waiting.

6:01 Levian: Not waiting. Hoping. He said proof would come, so I sat here with my tea like a— like a girl by the telephone. I dozed, and it woke me.

6:12 Holmes: In his office this morning you said nothing of the page, as I asked. And yesterday, to the bank? Levian: I asked if they'd sent me a statement. I never said how it came, or when.

6:24 Holmes: Good. Watson: A friend, then? Someone at the country club?

6:28 Levian: I've told not a living soul, Doctor. Who would I tell? That I sat up all night like a fool?

6:35 Parked Across From the Bank Before Noon

6:39 Watson: Holmes parked across from the bank on Camden Drive before noon. Mrs. Levian sat behind us, the bank's old letters on her knees. Holmes: Letterhead, a balance to the penny, and along the very top, the line a fax machine prints on everything it sends.

6:56 Watson: The header. Ours at the clinic gives our name and number. Holmes: This one gives a number and no name. Three one oh, five five five, nine one six oh.

7:08 Watson: Huh. Levian: Every letter of theirs carries their fax at the bottom. Five five five, four four oh oh. That number isn't the bank's, Mr. Holmes.

7:17 Holmes: Three one oh covers half the Westside. Someone had the bank's letterhead, and not the bank's machine. Levian: Then I take this page inside and put it on her—

7:27 Holmes: Nowhere. You take it nowhere. The page, the machine, the hour stay with the three of us. A bank tells its lawyers, and lawyers tell everyone.

7:37 Levian: And you? What will you do with it? Holmes: Ask it a question. Star six seven first, so whoever answers never sees our number.

7:46 Watson: Sneaky. A fax machine. Second ring, middle of the day.

7:53 Holmes: A line kept just for pages. No reverse directory lists it. Only a police warrant will make the phone company name it.

8:01 A Glass Corner Office, a Bowl of Mints, a Cooling Smile

8:05 Watson: Inside, the branch manager, Babette, gave us her glass corner office, a bowl of mints and a smile that cooled by the minute. Babette: Mrs. Levian, I told you on the phone yesterday, and I'll tell your friends. This branch sent you no statement. Not one.

8:23 Holmes: Not one, yes. Your screen had her account open before we sat down, Babette. You were expecting a fight.

8:30 Babette: I expected a lawyer, Mr. Holmes. You're cheaper-looking. What did she get that she thinks came from us?

8:37 Watson: Charming. Holmes: Something on your letterhead. It's in safe hands.

8:42 Levian: Then show me the holding account. Four families, sixteen million dollars. Babette: You can see when it left. One wire, the whole balance, three weeks ago. From the bookkeeper's terminal in Kashani's office, logged in on Cyrus's password, eleven forty at night.

8:58 Levian: Three weeks? No. He sat with me this morning, he said a delay, he said — Watson: Mrs. Levian. Look at me. Breathe.

9:07 Levian: Three weeks gone... and I've been choosing tiles for the new lobby. Tiles! Holmes: Your log gives a password, Babette. It doesn't tell you who was typing.

9:20 Babette: Then here's a name. Cyrus keeps his own checking with us. I see his balance every morning.

9:26 Watson: Should you be telling us that? Babette: That money walked out my door, Doctor. I'll take the scolding. Your bookkeeper's overdrawn. He took it, and my bank— my bank owes nothing.

9:38 Waiting by a Car in the Garage a Little After Six

9:42 Watson: Cyrus came down to the garage beneath the building a little after six; Holmes and I were waiting at his car. Cyrus: Mr. Holmes? That's my car. Is there a — I'm just going home.

9:54 Holmes: A twelve-year-old Civic on a bald front tire, Cyrus. Not the car of a man with sixteen million dollars. Cyrus: Sixteen... is that a joke? That's the holding account. It's sitting at the bank.

10:09 Holmes: It left three weeks ago, Cyrus. Your calendar upstairs has the paydays circled in red. The money left on one of them. A Friday, eleven forty. Where were—

10:18 Cyrus: Out. I was out. Friday? Dinner, with a— no. No, I went home. I was home all night.

10:25 Watson: You changed your answer halfway through the sentence. Cyrus: Fridays run together, okay? I got— I got mixed up.

10:32 Watson: It's cold down here and you're sweating through your shirt. In my clinic, that's a man with something on his conscience. Holmes: Home, then. Who saw you? A neighbor, a girlfriend, a pizza driver?

10:43 Cyrus: I live alone. I watched TV. I— nobody. Nobody saw me...

10:50 A Lieutenant on the Porch With a Cup of Coffee

10:54 Watson: Lieutenant Fujimoto climbed to our porch after nine that night with a cup of coffee and the patience of a woman doing someone a favor. Sit down, Lieutenant, before you fall down. Fujimoto: I'm homicide, Holmes. Nobody's dead. Fraud's swamped, so this is me being nice. Talk.

11:13 Watson: Lovely to see you too. Holmes: A fax, Lieutenant, on a bank's letterhead. The bank never sent it. The number it came from is unlisted.

11:22 Fujimoto: Phone company won't name a line for a smile. That's a warrant. Days, not—

11:26 Holmes: Not hours, I know. Then start it tonight. Fujimoto: When'd this fax come in?

11:32 Holmes: That stays with my client and me until your warrant arrives. Fujimoto: You want my paper and you keep yours. Fine. What else?

11:42 Holmes: The bank's log has the wire leaving on the bookkeeper's password, late on a Friday. His name is Cyrus. Tonight he told us he was out, then that he was home. Alone. Unseen.

11:55 Fujimoto: Money trouble? Watson: Overdrawn, says his own bank. And sweating in a cold garage. I'd stake my license on him, Lieutenant, he's—

12:03 Holmes: Don't stake anything yet. He changed "out" to "home" halfway through a sentence. He's hiding where he was. Whether that's the wire, I can't say yet.

12:14 Fujimoto: You can't. I can. A bank log doesn't lie. Do I bring him in?

12:19 Ten the Next Morning, Six in the Bookkeeping Room

12:23 Watson: By ten the next morning six of us filled the bookkeeping room: Fujimoto, Babette with her printout, Kashani at the window, Cyrus behind his adding machine. Babette: It's all there, Lieutenant. The terminal, the login, the minute. And whatever reached Mrs. Levian on our letterhead, my bank never sent it.

12:43 Fujimoto: Noted, Babette. Holmes, you asked for this room. Use it.

12:48 Holmes: Read it with me, Lieutenant. Cyrus's password, eleven forty at night. Logged out at eleven forty-four.

12:56 Cyrus: So? Anyone could — Holmes: Four minutes. No hunting through screens. Someone who knew this desk by heart. You're overdrawn. You told us out, then home. Nobody saw you.

13:09 Cyrus: I told you, I was home, I — Mr. Kashani, please, tell them — Kashani: Eleven years at that desk, Cyrus. What can I tell them?

13:18 Fujimoto: On your feet, Cyrus. Hands behind you. Cyrus: No — no, I didn't — I never touched it — my mother, she'll — I can't... I can't breathe —

13:29 Watson: You can, Cyrus. Slowly. In through the nose. It only feels like dying.

13:35 Fujimoto: Let's go. Kashani: Sixteen million dollars. And then, to soothe her, a forgery. Some phony statement that came over her fax at midnight. To a widow.

13:47 Babette: On my bank's letterhead. Our lawyers will want him in pieces. Watson: Someone kind should tell Mrs. Levian before the lawyers do.

13:56 Kashani: I'll go to her myself. Mr. Holmes. Thank God you found him.

14:01 Holmes: Mm.

14:03 A Bare Desk Early the Following Day

14:07 Watson: Kashani received the lieutenant and the two of us early the following day, his desk bare but for a stack of checks in a rubber band. Kashani: Lieutenant Fujimoto, a jury will want a reason. Why a man I trusted does this. Here's the reason.

14:23 Fujimoto: Paychecks. Kashani: Canceled. My bank returns them to me each month. Turn them over. Every payday for two years, cashed at his Torrena card club.

14:35 Watson: A gambler. That explains the overdraft. Holmes: More than explains it. Not one of these reached his own account. He never keeps a dollar long enough to deposit it.

14:45 Fujimoto: Huh. Kashani: And a man who loses his wages by Saturday looks for other money. I signed these with my own hand, Mr. Holmes. I should have seen.

14:56 Fujimoto: Here's the Friday the money left. Same club stamp on the back. Watson: So he cashes his pay at the club, loses it, and drives back here to a dark office for—

15:07 Fujimoto: Maybe. A stamp gives me a day. Not an hour.

15:10 Holmes: Lieutenant, does a Torrena card club keep cameras?

15:15 The Manager Gives Up His Chair

15:19 Watson: In Torrena, the club's security room was a closet of screens behind the cashier's cage, and the manager gave Fujimoto his chair. Fujimoto: They keep a month on disk. The Friday the money left. Poker room, table nine.

15:33 Watson: There, second seat. That's Cyrus. Same green windbreaker he had over his arm in the garage.

15:40 Fujimoto: Time-stamp's in the corner. Ten fifty. Eleven twenty. Freeze it. There he is: eleven forty, at the poker table, with chips in his hand.

15:49 Watson: Well, well. Holmes: Let it run. He keeps glancing at the clock on the wall and doesn't get up. He knows he should go home. He won't.

16:00 Watson: Twenty-dollar bets, and losing. That's his paycheck going. Nobody with sixteen million sits at that table.

16:08 Fujimoto: Still in his seat at four. So somebody else sat at his desk on his password. Watson: Good Lord.

16:17 Fujimoto: Fujimoto. Drop the fraud hold on Cyrus and turn him out tonight. Property's shut for the night, so his keys and wallet wait till he signs for them.

16:26 Fujimoto: He lied to hide a card table, and I— I bought it. I jailed the wrong man. Holmes: On my word.

16:36 Downtown, Mrs. Levian Holding the Page in Both Hands

16:39 Watson: Downtown, at Fujimoto's desk, Mrs. Levian held the page in both hands while Holmes and I stood behind her chair. Fujimoto: Mrs. Levian, the phone company finally answered. I need the—

16:51 Levian: Take it. I said in the car that number isn't the bank's. Escrow closed today without me, and for two days nobody would tell me whose it is. Fujimoto: Three one oh, five five five, nine one six oh. Second line, private. Billed to a house in Beverly Hills.

17:09 Levian: Half the Westside has a Beverly Hills address, Lieutenant. It could be anyone's. Fujimoto: The installer's order puts the jack upstairs, beside a desk. It rings in Kashani's home study.

17:21 Holmes: When I dialed it from the car, a machine answered on the second ring. Left switched on, in a house with nobody home all day. Levian: From his own— He's lived there alone since his wife died.

17:34 A Dark House With One Lit Window

17:38 Watson: One upstairs window was lit in Kashani's dark Beverly Hills house, and he opened the door to Fujimoto, Holmes and me himself. Kashani: Lieutenant. Mr. Holmes, Doctor. Come up, please. My study is the only warm room in this house.

17:54 Fujimoto: We won't keep you, Mr. Kashani. Your bookkeeper's out of jail. Kashani: Out? On what?

18:00 Fujimoto: A card club camera in Torrena. The night the money left, it has Cyrus at eleven forty, at the poker table. Not at your office.

18:09 Kashani: Then God forgive me. I watched you take him from that room and said nothing. Holmes: You don't ask who sat at his desk instead.

18:18 Kashani: Cyrus guarded nothing in his life, Mr. Holmes. Not his wages, not his password. Anyone could—

18:24 Fujimoto: There's more. My warrant traced the number on that fax Mrs. Levian got. The phone company's record says it rings in Kashani's home study. Yours, sir. This room.

18:35 Watson: That machine by your elbow, with its green light on. Kashani: Then someone has been— a burglar, Lieutenant. Someone's been in my house. I leave at seven and come home late.

18:45 Holmes: Your alarm chirped as you let us in, so you set it. Your burglar beat it, climbed past the silver downstairs, sent one page to one widow, and took nothing. Kashani: A careful burglar, then. This is Beverly Hills.

18:58 Watson: One who brought the bank's letterhead in his pocket? Kashani: Doctor, that bank mails its letterhead to half this city. My clients have drawers of it. So do I.

19:09 Fujimoto: Convenient. So. Anyone with a key and your alarm code.

19:14 Kashani: Or a ladder and a grudge. Lieutenant, you have a telephone line. Lines are borrowed, rented, tapped.

19:22 Holmes: And used, by someone who knew this room would be empty. Kashani: A line isn't a hand, Mr. Holmes. Prove mine.

19:31 Engine Off at the Curb Until the Light Goes Out

19:35 Watson: We sat afterward in Holmes's car at the curb, engine off, until the light in that upstairs window went out. He's right, curse him. He'll offer a jury a ladder and a grudge, and half of them will take it.

19:50 Holmes: Half is plenty for him. We need something only the sender could carry. Watson: Prints on the machine? No. It's his desk. Of course they're his.

20:00 Holmes: Not what he touched. What he said. The bookkeeping room, Watson. Cyrus just gone out in cuffs.

20:08 Watson: Kashani at the window. Sixteen million, he said, and then a forgery to soothe a widow. Holmes: And how it reached her. By fax. At twelve.

20:19 Watson: I heard it. Nobody so much as blinked. Holmes: Nor did I, to my shame. I stood in that room and let him thank me.

20:28 Watson: Then we both owe Cyrus a night's sleep. Holmes: And Mrs. Levian, in the chair facing her machine, swore she'd told no one. Watson: Then who told him?

20:39 Holmes: Exactly that. How did Kashani know the hour?

20:44 Noon, Back in the Office, the Widow by the Desk

20:48 Watson: At noon next day we stood in Kashani's office once more: Mrs. Levian by the desk, Fujimoto at the door, Cyrus in yesterday's shirt. Kashani: My dear, you shouldn't be here for this. And Lieutenant, why bring him?

21:04 Fujimoto: Cyrus rode with me. His keys and wallet are still in property. I'll drive him down after.

21:10 Holmes: You asked me to prove your hand, Mr. Kashani. In the bookkeeping room, with Cyrus already gone in cuffs, you told us the phony statement came over her fax at midnight. Kashani: Did I? Then I— I was told. Cyrus told me. He confided it at his desk, he—

21:26 Cyrus: What fax? I heard the bank lady say letterhead. Nobody ever said fax to me.

21:31 Kashani: Then the police. Police talk. Fujimoto: I didn't have the hour to talk about. Holmes wouldn't give it to me.

21:39 Kashani: The bank, then — Holmes: The bank was asked one thing: had it sent a statement. Never how. Never when.

21:46 Kashani: Then she told someone. A widow alone, she talks. Her friends, her accountant —

21:52 Levian: I've told not a living soul, Mr. Kashani, except these two men. Not my accountant. Not my friends. Not you.

22:01 Holmes: When you said it, four people knew that hour. Three never told you. The fourth sat at the other machine and pressed send.

22:09 Kashani: I guessed. Proof in a hurry comes by fax. What else would it be?

22:15 Fujimoto: Uh-huh. Watson: A fax, perhaps. But midnight? The very hour her machine printed?

22:21 Kashani: My dear. Look at me. You know me.

22:25 Levian: Don't call me that. Don't — you held my hand at his grave. You sat at my table.

22:32 Kashani: Please. Let me— Levian: Forty years he kept that building, and I gave it to you. I brought them to you, two families. I said trust him, he's like a brother —

22:43 Watson: Mrs. Levian. Sit. Please.

22:46 Levian: And all that time... all that time it was already gone. Fujimoto: Mr. Kashani, on your feet. You're under arrest for wire fraud.

22:56 Levian: Sixteen million dollars. Where did my money go?

23:02 Floor Wax and Burnt Coffee Downtown

23:06 Watson: The booking desk downtown smelled of floor wax and burnt coffee. Fujimoto stood Kashani at the counter while Cyrus signed for his keys a few feet off. Cyrus: Mr. Holmes. Before I go. Paydays, I— every payday I drive to Torrena. Every one. I cash the check at the cage and play till it's gone.

23:26 Holmes: And you stay till dawn. It's easier than going home with nothing. Cyrus: Going home's fine. Sunday dinner at my mother's is worse. I told you I was home all night because she thinks I'm saving for a condo.

23:40 Watson: Eleven years at one desk, and nobody ever knew. Kashani: I knew. Cyrus: You — what?

23:48 Kashani: Two years of his paychecks came back to me cashed at his Torrena card club, Mr. Holmes. I sign the front. I read the back.

23:58 Holmes: And the wire went out on a payday. Kashani: I chose it. A night he'd be at a card table, too ashamed to say so. He would lie to a policeman before he'd say "poker." And he did. Beautifully.

24:11 Fujimoto: Then why hand me those checks, if they could put him in Torrena? Kashani: To give your jury a gambler with debts. Who imagines a card club films every table all night?

24:22 Watson: She asked you where her money went. Answer it here. Kashani: To my buildings' lenders. The loans were months behind. One more month and every banker on Wilshire would know I was finished. Then the whole—

24:35 Holmes: Community. So four families paid to keep your name clean at the country club. Kashani: You don't know how they look at me there, Mr. Holmes. Or how they'd have looked.

24:46 Fujimoto: Belt, watch, ring, Kashani. In the tray. You're booked.

24:53 Watson: Cyrus — Holmes: Let him go, Watson. He owes none of us a word.

24:57 The Last Page of the Case Log at the Kitchen Table

25:01 Watson: I wrote the last page of the case log at our kitchen table above Echo Park, with Holmes across from me and the dishes in the sink again. Before I close it, Holmes. What truly hanged him? He was right: a line isn't a hand.

25:16 Holmes: The line put the page in his house. What hanged him was a widow who did as I asked and told no one. She swore it in her husband's study.

25:26 Watson: So the hour lived with four people, and he was one of them. Holmes: And he spoke it in his own bookkeeping room, the minute the door shut on Cyrus. Relief talks.

25:36 Watson: But why say it at all? He planned the very night around a payday. Holmes: Because he'd been there. He sat up that night as she did, at the other end of the line. A man can't unremember his own midnight.

25:50 Watson: Four families. And she vouched for him to two of them... Holmes: She'll carry that longer than he serves. Cyrus, at least, has his keys back.

26:01 Watson: And a seat at table nine by Friday, I'd wager. Holmes: His business. Write the thing.

26:07 Watson: Typing it now. Case log, final entry: Kashani, charged with wire fraud. Sixteen million dollars, gone for good. And Holmes ate my half of the carnitas.