Deadly Dozen: 12 Mysteries/Thrillers (20 page)

She said, “I know this sounds dumb, but what if we yank the whole back wall of the closet out? Maybe by hauling on the bar?”

Gaspar looked at the ragged joints which should have been closed seams. “Be damned heavy. No way Sylvia could have done it alone.” He shrugged. “Worth trying, I guess.”

Kim stepped out of the way. Gaspar grabbed the bar with both hands. When he pulled, the back wall flexed. He grunted and pulled twice more before the paneling came away. He tilted the assembly to free it. He breathed hard and heaved the solid pine to one side.

There was a dark expanse behind the wide opening.

Kim felt for a light switch and didn’t find one. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, turned it on, and used its flashlight application to navigate the darkness.

About four feet ahead, a single bulb hung from a white, flat cord fixed to the ceiling. Two more bulbs hung at intervals deeper in the darkness. She approached, pulled each string, and turned the lights on.

She sneezed.

Behind her Gaspar said, “It would have been nice to find something more than dust.”

“We have,” Kim said. “There’s more here than dust.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The ceiling height in the secret space was the same as in the rest of the house, a standard eight feet. The width was narrow. The TV cables were stapled to the wall. Connectors hung free of whatever electronic devices had once fed the screen. A closet organizer held empty garment bags, padded hangers, and transparent boxes perfectly sized for Sylvia’s shoes. Hermes luggage had left dust-free squares on the floorboards.

There were four identical freestanding shelf units. Each was maybe five feet wide and six feet high and twelve inches deep. Each had six shelves set a foot apart, and provided seven stacking places, including the floor. On each flat plane rested two rows of six cardboard shoe boxes. Eighty four boxes on each unit.

Two empty spaces must have held the two empty boxes she’d seen the day before.

Kim counted twice to be certain before she slipped a pair of latex gloves out of her pocket, pulled them on, and lifted a few random lids. Dust clouded up her nostrils; she sneezed again. After ten tests, she simply lifted each stack from the bottom to confirm its emptiness, while Gaspar sneezed through the same process from the opposite end.

When they’d finished, Gaspar stepped back into the bedroom, stripped off his gloves and swiped the perspiration from his brow; red grime filled the crevices.

He said, “There’s only one thing Harry would have stored in those boxes.”

“That much cash from porn?”

Gaspar shrugged. “Twisted. Kids, maybe. Or animals. We’re in the countryside here. Regardless, we’ve got a solid motive that’ll nail Reacher.”

Kim blinked.
Reacher?
She asked, “You’re saying Joe and Jack Reacher were involved in some money making scheme together fifteen years ago? Joe’s dead but Jack carried on anyway with Harry and Sylvia?”

“Works for me,” Gaspar said. “Or Joe was legit back then so Jack killed him to avoid arrest. That works for me, too.”

Kim said, “So Reacher waits fifteen years? Comes back to collect his cash, and kills Harry, cleans up, and gets away, leaving Sylvia to take the heat. That’s how you figure it?”

“Something like that,” Gaspar said. “No legitimate way for Harry to accumulate that much money. You don’t have to act like I’m stupid. It fits as well as anything you’ve come up with.”

They both heard the unmistakable sound of helicopter blades headed toward their way. Kim figured maybe five minutes to touchdown. She pulled out her smart phone.

“What are you doing?” Gaspar asked.

“Covering our butts,” she said. She started the video and started dictating. “Tuesday, November 3, two thirty-five p.m. Harry and Sylvia Black’s home. Bedroom. FBI Special Agents Carlos Gaspar and Kim Otto entered the house through unlocked doors seeking evidence in support of a homicide and suspected terrorism investigation begun yesterday. Upon closer examination of the bedroom closet, we located the hidden storage compartment depicted here, containing 336 empty cardboard shoe boxes and a space sufficient to hold the two boxes collected from the crime scene previously by local officers.”

She paused and changed her shot. “Also present are eight empty garment bags containing sixteen satin padded hangers, and twelve empty plastic shoe boxes, all believed to have contained Sylvia Black’s fashion wardrobe.”

She taped the entire row of shelving units and opened several of the cardboard shoe boxes to reveal their empty interiors. “Based on remains observed and samples collected at the scene of a related car bomb incident this morning, it appears these boxes contained U.S. currency. In particular, one-hundred-dollar bills more than a decade old. Calculations based on standard FBI protocols for cash volume suggest each box held approximately $200,000. If so, more than $67,200,000 was hidden here.” She ended the video recording and took several still shots of the boxes.

Gaspar asked her, “Why didn’t you say something about Reacher?”

“We’re still under the radar on that. And besides, as we lawyers say, there’s no evidence to support your wild ass guesses.”

“You know I’m right though,” he said.

“What I can prove is the important thing, Zorro. You want to stick your neck in that trap, go right ahead. I’m waiting to see those bright blue eyes before I say Reacher is responsible.” She turned off her phone again. She ducked into the closet and collected one of Sylvia’s transparent shoe boxes, and one lid.

“Prints,” she said.

He nodded.

They snugged the panel back into place.

“We need to call the boss,” Gaspar said.

The choppers were right on top of the house now.

Kim said, “No time.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Margrave, Georgia

November 2

2:50 p.m.

The GHP Aviation Unit UH-1H Huey settled on Harry Black’s front lawn in a storm of noise. The ground was too wet for dust, but pine trees bent and waved. Uniformed personnel ran doubled over through the downdraft and fanned around the house. All local. No federal agents yet.

Roscoe and two others were the last to come through from the whipping wind. Then the Huey lifted off again. One of Roscoe’s companions was the surviving Leach brother. He looked all wrung out. His hands were sooty. His face was lined by smoke and sweat and horror. He had big patches of dried blood on his filthy uniform.

His brother’s blood.

Roscoe nodded the introductions. “FBI Special Agents Otto and Gaspar, GHP Officers Archie Leach and Sam Friesen.”

Archie Leach stared holes in Gaspar’s chest. Kim felt the showdown simmering. She understood a brother’s need for vengeance. She didn’t know why he directed that need toward them. She planned to steer clear of Archie Leach. She figured Gaspar should do the same.

Kim said, “We picked up charred scraps of hundred dollar bills at the site of the explosion. We figured they were in the car and might have come from here.”

Roscoe nodded.

“Kliners,” she said.

“What are they?” Gaspar asked.

“It’s what we call them.”

“Call what?”

Archie Leach said, “Stop screwing around, G-man. You know what we mean. Counterfeit hundreds. From the old Kliner operation. Find any here or not?”

Kim blinked.

Harry’s stash wasn’t porn money.

It was counterfeit money.

Made sense.

As if he had known all along, Gaspar said, “We found the storage spot, but no Benjamins, which is what they call them where I come from. This way.”

They followed him to the bedroom. He pointed, then stood aside. Leach and Friesen yanked out the back of the closet revealing the black hole. Leach pulled his flashlight. He twisted sideways to get his bulk through the narrow entrance. He pulled the light cords as he went.

Roscoe stared as if he had exposed the lost city of Atlantis.

At the far end Leach turned back to face them, shaking his head slowly, like he couldn’t believe it. His buddy Friesen whistled, long and low. He said, “Could Harry Black have kept this place full of Kliners? All these years?”

Kim thought they were genuinely surprised. She glanced at Gaspar for confirmation. He shrugged, unwilling to abandon his suspicions. Harry Black was a cop and had $67 million in dirty money. Hard to make that happen as an independent operator.

Gaspar had a valid point.

Then Roscoe took charge.

Kim followed her outside. Roscoe lined up her subordinates and said, “Get on the horn to GHP. Tell them we need forensics out here again. A full team to collect evidence. Properly this time. Tell them to bring a twenty-four-foot truck if they have it, a hand-truck, and a tool box. They’ll need food and coffee. They’re going to be here a while.”

Sergeants Brent and Kraft were there. They exchanged quizzical looks. Brent said, “What’s up, chief?”

Roscoe ignored his question. “You talk to me alone. No one else. And we need this place secured. No one goes in or out or past you except law enforcement with full ID. Any questions, you call me and only me for authorization. Set up at the driveway entrance and log every visitor, including the vehicles they arrive in. You keep doing that until I personally tell you otherwise. Each person asking to enter, you take a picture of them and their ID. Send it to me immediately. Got all that?”

“Got it,” Brent said, but he made no move to do her bidding. Kraft took his lead from Brent and stood still. “Who are we looking for?”

Roscoe said, “Make those calls. I’ll update you as soon as I can.”

Brent and Kraft jogged toward the end of the driveway. Kim hoped Roscoe was wondering whether they were trustworthy. She needed to.

Kim asked, “Why are they called Kliners?”

Roscoe swiped her hair away from her face with a grubby palm. Soot had settled in the starburst crevices around her eyes. Fatigue freighted her shoulders. She said, “Because of the Kliner Foundation.”

“What was the Kliner Foundation?”

“A charitable foundation based in Margrave, long ago.”

“What kind of charity?”

“No kind, as it turned out. It was a front.”

“For counterfeiting?”

“On a massive scale,” Roscoe said. “Bad hundreds were floating around Margrave like leaves off the trees.”

“How much total?”

“Joe Reacher estimated four billion a year. For five years or more.”

“That’s twenty billion,” Kim said.

“Could have been more. We never got an accurate count. But it was enough to destabilize the currency, potentially. Which is why Joe Reacher was involved. Plus murder, intimidation, kidnapping, bribery, theft, embezzlement, bank fraud, and trafficking. You name it. Anything and everything except printing money. They didn’t print the bills here as far as we know. Joe thought the printing was done in Venezuela.”

Pieces of the puzzle crashed together. Joe Reacher’s treasury job was to bring counterfeiters to justice. His death in tiny Margrave in the line of duty must have been caused by the Kliner Foundation. The waitress’s freak-out at Eno’s Diner when Gaspar paid the check with his crumpled hundred happened because she must have thought it was a Kliner fake.

And Jack Reacher lived so far off the grid because with that much cash and some ingenuity, he could easily erase his paper trail forever.

Roscoe said, “I really thought this mess was behind us. But Kliner spread the cash pretty thick. He was buying silence. And I guess people being what they are, bills got stashed. And pulled out on a rainy day here and there.”

“But?” Kim asked.

“There could have been more than fifty million hidden here.”

Kim said, “We figured sixty-seven million and change. Assuming each box was full. Including the two boxes worth that must have been in the Chevy.”

Roscoe nodded. “It’s unfathomable to me. Harry couldn’t have acquired that many Kliners fifteen years after we squashed the operation. Where the hell did he get them from?”

Kim watched Roscoe and said, “And where are they now?”

Roscoe just shook her head.