Forensic accounting is " 'C.S.I.' with numbers instead of dead bodies," says Laurie Dyke.

Just think spreadsheets instead of ballistics and bloodstains.

In the gray-carpeted basement of her house, she's practicing a PowerPoint presentation she will use to explain a multifaceted fraud case to jurors. She delves into hidden assets for divorce lawyers, cooked books for government investigators and embezzlement for employers.

Fraud, she says, is usually committed by a trusted employee or associate. She thinks she can avoid that in her own business, the Investigative Accounting Group, LLC. After a couple of years flying solo, she took in a partner a year and a half ago: her husband, George, 55. He's a former accountant and advertising salesman with a master's degree in finance from Georgia State University.

Laurie, a Wyoming native with a degree in business administration from the University of California, Berkeley, met Georgia-born George in Denver. They moved to metro Atlanta in 1986.

During a corporate career, she developed a reputation for "cleaning up messes." Now she analyzes them.

Although her own desk is neat and her files are orderly, she is often faced with finding the finagled figures among reams of unorganized papers in cobwebby boxes.

She inventories the evidence --- receipts, ledgers, tax returns, correspondence, bank statements --- then figuratively dumps it on the table like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

"You find the edges, find the corners, put pieces together and start seeing patterns and colors," she says.

Although she never has every single piece, she's usually able to get the picture.

If you know someone with an interesting hobby, profession, experience or expertise, please e-mail gwhite@ajc.com.

Name: Laurie Dyke
Age: 51
Family: Husband, George; daughters Jessica, 19; Ashley, 18; Stephanie, 14
Home: Marietta