Firm Ambitions (26 page)

Chapter Twenty-eight

Twenty-four centuries after it was built, the Parthenon still stands as evidence of the glory of ancient Athens. So, too, the Colosseum remains a stirring reminder of the power and the spectacle of the Roman Empire. But in less than a year after the last of its twenty million visitors had departed, only a skilled archaeologist could have found much evidence that St. Louis had been the site of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. The huge, ornate palaces celebrating the new gods of progress, the floral clock with a minute hand seventy-four feet long, the Ferris wheel that stood 264 feet high and seated sixty passengers in each of its thirty-six cars, the French Pavilion that included a full-scale reproduction of the Grand Trianon at Versailles, the entire villages of natives imported from South America, Africa, and Asia and plunked down in replica villages on the fairgrounds—all had been quickly dismantled and carted off, with the exception of the gargantuan Ferris wheel, which was literally blown apart with dynamite.

By the spring of 1905, there was little left of the largest single event in the history of St. Louis, a fair that had introduced the world to ice cream cones, frankfurters, and iced tea and would eventually be memorialized in the Judy Garland musical
Meet Me in St. Louis
. Indeed, aside from the occasional chunk of twisted metal unearthed by the grounds crews that maintain the golf course in Forest Park, little today remains of St. Louis's brief turn on the world stage except for the Bird Cage.

The Bird Cage sits along the northern edge of the zoo. Built by the Smithsonian Institution and bequeathed to the city when the fair ended, the Bird Cage is a huge aviary, the largest of its kind ever constructed. Still home to dozens of species of birds, it is a Victorian oasis within the modern world, with a sky of black metal screen suspended over towering iron ribs. Enclosed within are trees, ponds, a stream, and an elevated walkway that allows visitors to move from one end to the other, observing the birds above and below.

While the Jungle of the Apes and the Big Cat Country and the Living World lure the crowds when they first arrive at the zoo, those who spend the day eventually find their way down to the Bird Cage, where almost all succumb to its charm. But the allure it held for me that morning was quite distinct from the attractions it held for the children and young mothers and older couples who were strolling along on the elevated walkway past me. To a lawyer with precious little experience in arranging a potentially dangerous rendezvous, the Bird Cage seemed a uniquely advantageous meeting space. It was an enclosed public space with excellent visibility and nowhere to hide, inside or out. Someone approaching the Bird Cage from any direction would be clearly visible, and anyone approaching me would have to do so along the one elevated walkway. Almost as important, I was clearly visible to anyone outside the Bird Cage—a reassuring thought as I glanced at my mother. She was in her car, which was parked on the street that ran along the northern perimeter of the zoo and thus along the northern side of the Bird Cage. Her videocamera was resting on the car window. The car was idling so that the cellular phone was ready for dialing 911, just in case.

I checked my watch. It was nearly curtain time.

A pair of schoolteachers—both middle-aged women— ushered twenty or so elementary school children into the Bird Cage through the east entrance. The children dashed ahead, laughing and shouting, running down the walkway, pointing at the birds.

A rhythmic grunting noise caught my attention. Below me in a shallow pond were nine flamingos, standing in a row. Their heads were bobbing slowly in time, nine pairs of beady eyes fixed on me. A hot-pink chorus line. As I watched, the bobbing motions began to accelerate and the grunts grew louder, everything still synchronized. Faster and louder, faster and louder. It peaked in a surreal flamingo climax, and then the tight pattern broke apart as the bobbing slowed and stopped. One by one, the flamingos dunked their heads in the pond water.

“Symbols of the modern world,” a familiar voice said at my side.

I turned. Charles Kimball gestured at the flamingos. “They feed upside down.”

I looked back at the flamingos. They were standing in shallow water. One swung its head down to water level. Sure enough, its head dipped into the water upside down, the beak pointing toward its feet, its eyes underwater. The anatomical upper beak was underwater, moving up and down against the anatomical lower, which was stationary. The flamingo standing to the right of the feeding one had its head in the air, peering around. I stared at it. The upper jaw—small and narrow—looked like the lower bill of a typical bird. The lower bill was massive and deep and stationary, more like the typical upper jaw.

“Perfectly adapted through evolution,” Kimball continued, “and unique among vertebrates. A topsy-turvy animal dressed in Day-Glo colors. Very striking. Very L.A., wouldn't you say?”

“Now that you mention it.”

“And speaking of unique, Rachel, this is an unusual meeting place. I assume you have invited me here to discuss more than flamingos.”

“I have,” I said as I unzipped my briefcase. “But first I want you to listen to something.” I removed a Leuwenhaupt microcassette player with lightweight headphones. I handed him the headphones. “The tape is a copy,” I explained. “The original is in a safe deposit box.”

I waited until he had put on the headphones, then pressed the PLAY button.

“Listen carefully,” I said.

The sound of Andros's voice coming through the headphones was faintly audible to me: “This is number five uh
click
number five Asbury Way.
click
This house is in Frontenac.
click
There's a door sensor on the front door, with a Telsor combination panel to the right when you come in.
click
.”

I was studying Kimball's face. When the tape first started, with Andros describing the front entrance to 5 Asbury Way, Kimball had glanced at me. As the tape droned on, he frowned in concentration and pursed his lips. I turned it off about halfway through.

“Curious,” he said as he removed the headphones and handed it to me. “Where did you find it?”

“With some of his other stuff. It's all in the safe deposit box.”

“I fear I may be missing the point of all this.”

I gave him a skeptical smile. “I very much doubt that, Charles.”

“What's this about a safe deposit box?”

“I call it my key-woman life insurance policy.”

“I am still not following you, Rachel.”

“The safe deposit box is located inside a major St. Louis financial institution. A trust officer there has a signed and notarized letter from me, witnessed by two other trust officers.” I spoke slowly and deliberately. It was important that he understand exactly what I had done. “That letter instructs the trust officer to immediately notify the FBI and give them the contents of that safe deposit box if for any reason whatsoever I should die.” I paused.
“Any
reason, Charles, any cause of death, no matter how innocent.”

He nodded gravely. “That must be quite a safe deposit box.”

“It is.”

“What else is in there besides the audiotape?”

“For starters, the negatives of these prints.” I removed the photographs I had taken during our stakeout of Mound City Mini-Storage. “Along with the rap sheet for this upstanding member of the community.” I pointed to the picture of Pete Ricketts removing a shrouded painting from the back of his van at the Beaumont Art Gallery. “According to court records, you have had the pleasure of representing Mr. Ricketts on two criminal matters, both involving burglaries.”

He nodded his head thoughtfully. “And you have more?”

“Much more.”

I laid out the whole scheme. The correlation between personal fitness sessions Andros conducted in certain homes and subsequent burglaries of those homes. The use of Mound City Mini-Storage as a place to store the stolen goods until they could be fenced. The correlation between the dates of certain burglaries and the use of the Firm Ambitions computerized cardkeys at Mound City.

“The conclusion is obvious,” I said. “Firm Ambitions was a front for a fully integrated burglary operation. It ran like an assembly line. Andros was the advance scout at the front end, and guys like Leo Beaumont moved the stolen goods at the back end. I assume everyone got their cut along the way.”

“Fascinating,” Kimball said in a totally noncommittal way. I had assumed at the outset that I would be dealing cards to a grandmaster, so I wasn't surprised by his perfect poker face.

“That kind of operation needs a ringleader,” I continued. “It obviously wasn't Andros.”

“Why is that obvious?”

“First of all, the burglaries and the rest of the activities continued after he was dead. I took those pictures last week. Second, Andros was strictly small-time before Firm Ambitions. He didn't have a history of that kind of crime. He didn't even have much history in this country. But what he did have was an arrest for criminal conduct that, had he been convicted, would have resulted in deportation to Saudi Arabia. How do they punish homosexuals over there? What's the sentence for cocaine users in Saudi Arabia? He must have been desperate after the arrest. When you got those charges dropped, you literally saved his life, at least in the short term. But it also gave you enormous leverage over him.”

He chuckled. “Rachel, this is beginning to sound like a made-for-TV movie plot. Are you suggesting that I somehow forced that young man into a life of crime?”

“No. All I am suggesting is that Andros was someone who could have been forced to take part in the scheme but that he wasn't the ringleader.”

He gave me a good-naturedly skeptical look. “And you seriously think I was?”

“I want to be clear on this point, Charles. I am not accusing you of anything. I think of you more as the Hollywood agent of this operation—the guy who could put the right people in touch with each other, keep things rolling.”

He gave me an avuncular smile. “All because I've represented a few of these chaps in the past?”

“No. All because of that tape you just heard.”

The smile remained, but it was just a little tighter. “I am afraid that you have lost me again.”

“Andros didn't break into those homes. Those were professional jobs. All he did was scout each target home. You heard the tape. That was his role. Identify the security system, find the valuables, describe their location. He made those tapes for the pros. The pros came in for the actual burglaries.”

“An interesting hypothesis.”

“An overwhelmingly likely hypothesis. Otherwise, Charles, why make the tapes? Not for himself. He made them for others.”

“Continue.”

“But the others had to be able to
listen
to the tapes, or at least read a transcript of them, right?”

“Go on.”

“The tape you listened to was recorded on a unique microcassette size. You have to have a special recorder or transcriber to listen to it. That's the key, Charles. There aren't many of those machines in St. Louis. I've seen the manufacturer's records. I even have a photocopy of a key page of those records in the safe deposit box. You own several of those machines, Charles—recorders and transcribers.”

“Along with dozens of others in St. Louis, no doubt.”

“True. A few of them might even make it onto an initial list of suspects. But you and I both know that all of them will be scratched once the police start investigating. Your name jumps out from the list, Charles. You are the obvious one. You are the only one.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Rachel, this is marvelously entertaining—”

“And true,” I interrupted.

He chuckled as he turned toward the flamingos. “Let's leave cosmic questions like truth to the philosophers.” He inhaled and slowly exhaled as he studied the pink birds below. “I assume you've called me here to talk about your sister's predicament. How does this intricate scheme you claim to have divined bear on the death of Andros?”

“Life insurance.”

He turned to me with what passed for a look of confusion. “I beg pardon.”

“Key-man life insurance. There was a million-dollar policy on his head. Use him in this scheme for three or four years, then kill him off, and collect the money.”

He widened his eyes and smiled. “You are not suggesting that I am the beneficiary of his life insurance policy?”

I pressed on. “The nominal beneficiary is a company down in the Cayman Islands. Someone owns that company—or maybe several someones. Maybe you're one of them.” I shrugged indifferently. “Or one of your nominees. Charles, I'm not here to make you prove your innocence. However, I know—and
you
know—that this key-man insurance scam isn't the first one, or even the second. Andros is victim number four.”

He frowned. “Now I am totally lost.”

“Charles,” I said with a patient smile, “I don't believe you've ever been lost.”

“Indulge an older man, Rachel. Tell me about the other three.”

And so I did. I told him about the two predecessor companies owned by Capital Investments and how their presidents had died. I explained that I had already confirmed a key-man life insurance policy on one and I assumed that the police would be able to find a policy on the other man as well.

Kimball looked fascinated. “And the fourth?”

“Another one of your clients, Charles. Arthur Brandt. Remember? I assume that's where you got the original idea. If a clumsy, greedy fool like Brandt could get away with it, how much easier for someone clever enough to establish a corporate veil between himself and the insurance money.”

He smiled appreciatively. “You have a vivid imagination, Rachel.”

“I also have copies of everything I've just described. They're in that safe deposit box, along with a videotape of me explaining the evidence against you, Charles. And just for added precaution, I'm having this meeting videotaped.” I pointed to the parked car where my mother was filming us. “That's going into a different safe deposit box at another financial institution.”