Sara Paretsky - V.I. Warshawski 08 (55 page)

“Yeah.
I broke the law. I agree. The cops know about it”—at least, Conrad knew about
it—“and they’re not happy, but they haven’t applied for a warrant.

It’ll
be the FBI, anyway, not the city police, who’ll look into Jasper’s story.

That
should make for a fascinating investigation, because we’ll get to see whether
Senator Gantner has enough influence to shut down the Justice Department.”

Tish’s
lower jaw jutted out. “I knew Jasper was paying people off the books, but that
isn’t such a big crime. The worst that can happen is we’d pay a fine.

Everyone
wants affordable housing for the homeless, but no one wants to pay the bill. If
we had to pay union scale a lot of those people would still be—”

“Out
on the streets; I know,” I cut in. “But that isn’t what I’m talking about. A
few million over the years to contractors is peanuts compared to their main
game.

“Jasper,
together with Alec Gantner and Donald Blakely, formed a holding company called
JAD, which they used to buy Century Bank here in Uptown. They then used Century
to funnel money from the Cayman Islands to the Gant-Ag account at Gateway Bank.
Now why, you are asking yourself, did Gant-Ag need to bring money into the
country in such a secretive way? And the answer is: They were violating the
embargo against Iraq. They were working through a man named Manzoor Khalil in
Jordan—which sat on the fence during the Gulf brouhaha. I can’t prove it, but
I’m betting Gant-Ag shipped corn to Saddam—which meant they had to be paid
surreptitiously.”

Murray’s
jaw dropped, then he sprang up, knocking over his mike, and shook my shoulder.
“Fact, Warshawski, or fiction? Damn you, how much of this is true? And how do
you know?”

“She’s
got some of it in her computer.” I cocked my head at Tish. “Your
fifty-million-dollar line of credit from Century. Didn’t it ever occur to you
that that was a whole lot more than a little not-for-profit like Home Free
needed? Even if you’d stopped being a direct service provider and were building
affordable housing instead?”

The
color had receded from Tish’s cheeks, leaving them a faint beige. Her lips
mouthed the word no, but no sound came out.

“I
want to see it.” Murray’s baritone was cracking with desire; he sounded like
Mitch trying to get a squirrel on the other side of the fence.

“He
did it as a favor to Senator Gantner, didn’t he—really, to the whole Gantner
family.” I ignored him, speaking directly to Tish. “The money came through
Gateway as part of the Gant-Ag line of credit. So not only did they get the
money, but they got it in the form of a loan. That meant they could deduct the
loan interest from their income tax while they repaid—using cash from Jasper’s
magic drawer. The loan repayment, in turn, financed JAD’s acquisition of
Century. The whole deal made a tight loop, very symmetrical.”

“No,”
Tish whispered. “It couldn’t be that. Jasper did set up the line of credit as a
favor to Senator Gantner. But in return the senator gave us almost a hundred
thousand dollars. It was so much—we could do so much good with that kind of
money.”

I
held out the Gant-Ag papers I’d taken from Blakely’s office. “It’s all in here,
Tish: the Gateway money, the summary of the reports the bank sent to the IRS.
Senator Gantner took legal advice on the tax code and offshore banks eighteen
months ago. At the same time, by the way, that he was inquiring into the Boland
Amendment.”

Murray
snatched the papers from me and started going through them so fast that they
fell on the floor. He dropped to his knees to grab them up again, but Tish was
sitting motionless with shock. Her skin was pulled so tight across her face
that I thought the bones might poke through it.

“Then
Deirdre stumbled on it,” I went on. “She was doing all that volunteer work, and
she found the accounting records.”

“I
had the flu,” Tish whispered. “She should never have seen those files. But
Jasper was out of the office and she was being a good soldier, entering cash
receipts.”

“And
she confronted Heccomb with what she’d seen,” I prodded when her voice trailed
away.

“He
told her—what I just said. How much good we were doing, and not to get everyone
in trouble when the law itself was a bad one. He said Senator Gantner would
appreciate it, appreciate her support—he knew Mr. Messenger was hoping for a
federal judgeship.”

“You
sat in on the conversation?” Murray asked.

She
turned a deep red; her gaze flicked at the intercom box on her desk. She wasn’t
going to admit it, but jealous love of Jasper made her want to hear what he
said to a woman alone in his office with him.

“Was
that why Blakely got Gateway to make a donation to Arcadia House?” I asked.

“I
guess so,” she whispered, looking at her hands. “I didn’t know about the
money—the Century line of credit, I mean—until Deirdre stumbled onto those accounts.
Jasper always kept the corporate donor files himself. I don’t even know where
Deirdre found the diskette. Snooping around, I suppose. Then she couldn’t let
it alone. Every time she came in the last few weeks she liked to try to get me
to discuss it.”

We
sat silent for a minute. Street noises floated faintly through the Thermopane
windows—children shrieking on their way home from school, the occasional car on
a shortcut to Montrose.

“When
Deirdre died, you didn’t think Jasper or his friends were trying to shut her
up, did you?”

“No!”
The word came out as an explosion that startled her as much as it did Murray
and me. “They’d given twenty-five thousand to one of her pet charities.

They
were going to make her husband a judge. What else did she need?”

A
list of Deirdre’s needs flitted through my mind, but I said aloud, “Did you see
a baseball bat in here anytime recently?”

Surprised
by the change of subject, Tish answered without thinking. “Yes.

Donald
Blakely brought one in—I don’t know, three weeks ago maybe. He and Jasper were
laughing about it, then Jasper said something about going to bat for Gantner
one more time. Why do you ask?” she added belatedly.

The
police had kept the discovery of Fabian’s bat from the press, but the
juxtaposition of Deirdre’s death with my question made the connection for
Murray. His eyes blazing, he started to say something, cut himself short in the
nick of time, and instead tried to get Tish to pin down the day. She couldn’t
be specific, and she couldn’t remember, when I asked her, if it had been a
signed bat. She wasn’t interested in baseball; she didn’t know what a signed
bat was.

Murray
had the whole interchange on tape. Surely that would make Finchley reconsider
his warrant for Emily’s arrest. Tish’s testimony definitely ruled Fabian out as
well. A pity, really. But maybe he’d been an accessory.

No,
that wasn’t possible either. Blakely or Gantner must have taken the bat with
precisely the aim of implicating Fabian in his wife’s murder. Neither of them
would have expected Emily to snatch the weapon away. They must have been on
tenterhooks ever since, wondering why Fabian hadn’t been arrested.

“So
what do you want to do now?” Murray asked me. “Take all this to the state’s
attorney, or to the federal prosecutor? Or should I just run an exclusive?”

“What
do you want us to do, Tish?” I said.

“Go
to hell,” she snapped.

“Understood.
But since that isn’t among your options?”

“You
have to give me time to think. You can’t print anything anyway. You only have
allegations. No proof.”

Her
face was furrowed in agony. I did feel sorry for her. She was bright; she was
dedicated to a difficult social cause. Her only crime was in falling in love
with Jasper Heccomb. And he was whistling happily around the city, while she
would spend the night tossing in torment.

“We
have enough that proof will follow.” Murray spoke with unwonted gentleness—her
naked misery was affecting him too. “Can she have forty-eight hours, Nancy
Drew?”

“Not
on the baseball bat. But on the money? That stash isn’t going anywhere very
fast.”

Murray
moved the phone next to her. He patted her shoulder in a sympathetic way. She
drew away from him with a sharp cry. Before the door shut behind us her
shoulders were heaving with sobs.

The
Dead Speak

“I
feel sorry for her,” Murray said as we stood outside his car. “You were pretty
rough on her.”

“I
feel sorry for her too. Sorry enough to give her a jolt that may keep her from
washing Heccomb’s dirty clothes one last time.”

“Speaking
of laundry—these papers are suggestive, but they don’t prove a damned thing.
Gateway bought some Gant-Ag debt from Century, but it doesn’t say word one
about the Caymans.”

I
grinned at him. “Here’s where you get to prove you’re still the boy reporter
who can scoop all the kids hungry for your job. One of those stories you
printed out for me mentioned Craig Gantner testifying in front of a Senate
select committee that Gant-Ag didn’t break the embargo. Go to Washington and
find out who knew enough to get a subpoena for the senator’s brother. Talk to Messenger:
he did some legal work for Gantner on the Boland Amendment. Fabian won’t talk
to me, but he might confide to you what slant the senator wanted on the
amendment.”

Murray
planted a wet kiss on my nose. “This could be a very big story, Warshawski. I’ll
take you to dinner at the Ritz if I win a Pulitzer.”

“Be
still, my waiting heart. How about walking me to my front door instead? A big
ugly goon is on my tail and I’m not up to fighting him solo.”

Murray
responded with appropriate mockery, but when I told him about Anton’s assault
on Emily yesterday, and my scampering around the Gateway stairwells this
morning, he agreed I had earned some support.

“Although,
I don’t know, Warshawski. When did Nancy Drew ever ask Ned to watch her back?”
he said when we’d reached my apartment without incident.

“You’re
going to have to bring Anton to me in your teeth to restore your credibility.”

“Only
if he’s wrapped in latex—I don’t want to catch rabies or worse from touching
him.”

We
parted on that light vein, but I wondered how long I would be left in peace by
the musketeers. Perhaps, through their pipeline to the city, they knew I’d gone
to Conrad’s from the hospital. But at any moment they would learn I had
returned to my own home.

I
surveyed the street from my front window. My car was sitting there like a
bright red beacon, saying “Come and get me.” It was too late to move it—it had
been there for more than a day. I couldn’t worry about that now.

My
legs were aching. I went to the kitchen and made up some ice packs out of bags
of frozen peas. Using a couple of Ace bandages I attached them to my legs and
lay down on the couch. It was supposed to be a half-hour nap, but the phone
woke me a little after six.

“Don’t
you ever check your messages?” It was Ken Graham. “I’ve called four times in
the last day.”

“Excuse
me, your highness, for not leaping to attention at the first intimation of your
wishes. Before you execute me can I have five minutes to say farewell to my
dogs?”

“Oh.
You think I’m being pushy. Sorry. But I found something really amazing in your
old computer. A letter to you from Deirdre.”

He
laughed when I could only sputter out half-questions. “I thought you’d be
amazed. I got a lot of your accounting numbers pieced together and printed out.

Then
I thought maybe I should take a look at your word-processing documents, see if
there was anything with a recent date that you might need, and there was this
message from beyond the grave.”

“What
does it say? How do you know Deirdre wrote it?” I sat up and turned on a lamp.

“She
did it like a memo: To Vic from Deirdre. With the date and everything.

She
said—well, I’ll read you exactly what she said: ‘I made Fabian tell me how they
bring the money in. Just ask him.’ ”

“You
really found this on my machine? You wouldn’t shit an old hand, would you?”

“Why
would I do that? I don’t know what she’s talking about,” he said plaintively.

“You
saw all that cash in the Home Free office.”

“What
cash?” he demanded.

I
remembered that Jasper had arrived as I was going through the drawer. Maybe I’d
never mentioned it to Ken. I apologized for suspecting him of making a monkey
of me in order to get me to pay attention to him.

If
the message was authentic, why on earth had she written it? Was she going to
leave it flashing on my computer screen to greet me in the morning? Because in
the normal course of things that would be the only way I’d see a file I didn’t
know existed. Did she know she was about to die, and was hoping to grab my
attention in a way that would make me investigate her murder?

I
could see Deirdre, as plainly as if she were in front of me, that little
gloating smile of triumph. She thought she had Fabian? Gantner? Heccomb? all
the musketeers, I suppose, on a string. This wasn’t a message typed in
desperation, but one she’d written out while she waited for her murderer. She’d
shown it to him, and he’d bashed her brains out. Maybe he’d deleted the file
after he killed her. Then, halfway home, he wondered if she’d left other
messages in the machine. He decided the safe thing would be to come back and
erase the whole disk.