Stolen Power

by Peter O'Mahoney

  “We’ve got two things to do—see if we can find Millie, and if we can’t, prepare for a safe drop. We’ve got to prepare for a safe drop now, while trying to find her. We don’t have much time, so it’s our backup. We have to be prepared to save the girl’s life with a ransom exchange.”

  The safe drop was not the way I wanted things to go, but the preliminary plans for it had to be made and quickly, getting ahold of that much cash was neither simple nor routine. After all, a million dollars was one hell of a lot of money to withdraw, it could raise serious suspicions on behalf of the bank, but Chase had given us his word that he could get it. For now, that was up to him, the financial world was his forte not mine, and what’s more I didn’t have time to follow or guide him through the process, after all, more pressing matters were at hand. But if the drop had to occur, I wanted to be there, on site, hidden but watching and waiting with Casey, while Chase himself did the handover. That would be the tricky bit. The details of this were, as of yet, left unstated by the kidnapper, but hopefully they’d make a mistake, not a mistake that would harm Millie, but one that would let us nab them once Millie was safe and well.

  Casey pulled a piece of paper from her handbag, amongst the files that were provided by Chase. He was co-operative, at least. Not likable, but then that’s not a part of my job. My job isn’t to make friends, it’s to investigate, to peel the onion, so to speak, to see the multiple layers underneath the surface and see into the heart of the matter.

  With the news on the television about the kidnapping gone wrong in Florida, I understood Chase’s apprehension to have the police or FBI involved. It was too much of a risk. And I’d seen them blunder their way through plenty of investigations in the past. There were some good cops out there, but I’d met my fair share of incompetent ones too.

  Casey’s phone pinged: It was a message from Chase, he had already begun making arrangements to have the money available.

  “Well, that’s something,” I said. “I wonder what on earth he told the bank. If that’s where he went, it wouldn’t surprise me if man like that had a ditch kit.”

  “Ditch kit?”

  “Yeah, a safety deposit box with all the necessities in case he has to do a runner: gold, cash, passports, you know, that sort of thing.”

  Casey nodded. “How about this list of ten people that invested in his latest bankrupt venture? It seems a bit coincidental that they’re asking for the same amount that was lost.”

  She had a point, but having said that, a million dollars was a nice round figure too, both to ask for and to count, after all, a kidnapper wouldn’t ask for nine hundred and fifty-five thousand dollars.

  Casey handed across a printout of the names.

  “And look at this,” said Casey. “It’s the ex-wife’s new boyfriend on the list.”

  “Interesting that his ex-wife’s new boyfriend is on there and that Chase didn’t mention it. The list is a good starting point, can you get me some background on all these names by the morning?” I glanced over the names of the poor souls who lost one hundred thousand each to that smug investment broker. And then my heart sunk. “Oh no.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I know one of the names on that list. A cop, a guy on the edge, and my late wife’s brother.” I put the Chevy into gear. “And he’s going to be my first call tomorrow morning.”

  Chapter 5

  Sunday mornings are regarded as sacred, a moment to disappear from the world, forgetting about all the heavyweight worries, all the stresses of work, and all the troubles of the week. Thoughts of finances, worries about family, and fears of ill health are usually forgotten on long mornings in a warm bed, a chance to recover and revive. Usually, Sunday mornings are spent holding a loved one close, their warm body creating a sense of comfort and escape. A long breakfast, a quiet cup of coffee, and a nice read of the paper usually follows.

  Usually.

  Not this Sunday morning. Not when the life of a five-year-old girl was on the line. Not with just four days to go. And counting.

  After a number of unsuccessful attempts at reaching him by phone, my brother-in-law, Ben Glazier, finally answered on the fifth try.

  “Jack, it’s 5am on Sunday morning.” He moaned. “What do you want?”

  “I don’t have time to mess around.” I was blunt. “I’m outside your front door.”

  “You’re what?!”

  He muttered an expletive then the phone hung up, and after a few moments, I heard the movements of a tired man trying hard not to wake the remaining members of his family. When someone showed up at your front door early on a Sunday morning, most people knew it was serious: if not, why would they disturb your sacred time?

  Apprehensively, Ben opened the front door, while still tying the waist of his white robe together.

  “It had better not be Claire’s money that she left for Alannah.”

  The shock of the statement caught him off-guard, his eyes widened, pupils dilating rapidly as the fear became clearly visible on his face. He quickly tried to recover and conceal his emotions, badly faking a morning yawn in order to buy him the necessary time to think on the fly, a few extra seconds to get his mental faculties together but it was all too obvious, all too clear to see.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about Jack.” He looked away from me, away from my glare. “And I don’t know why you’re here on a Sunday morning discussing money. Have you been drinking hard again?”

  It was a poor effort to deflect his guilt on me with the drinking jibe. I’d played this game before and with far better players than him.

  “Ben,” I stepped close to him, close enough for him to feel my breath. “I’ve got a job from Chase Martin.”

  His face dropped. The game was up and he knew it.

  “Alright, alright.” He hushed me, stepped away from the front door, and closed the door behind him. “I’ll listen to you, just don’t wake the family.”

  “You’ll do more than listen, you’ll answer my questions unreservedly too. You hear me?”

  He nodded, meekly.

  Ben was slight, clean cut, late thirties. Brown hair, bushy eyebrows, and I was sure he’d have a hairy back, not that I ever wanted to check. A cop by day, a family man by night, and an idiot twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

  He’d seen some of the worst the streets of Chicago had to offer, some gruesome crimes and some senseless killings, recently losing a partner in a gunfight with gangbangers. His once boyish looks were fading to middle-age, the bags under his eyes becoming more pronounced and the previously thin lines on his forehead now deep and furrowed. His waistline too was beginning to bulge and his overall health was on a steep downward trajectory: hypertension, stomach ulcers and high cholesterol were his new normal. But that didn’t mean I was going to go easy on him, far from it.

  When I first started dating his sister, he wasn’t happy. He thought I was too tough, too rough, and full of too much violent stuff to care about her. He barely spoke a word to me until the day of Claire’s and my wedding, which we held in the beautiful town of Madison, Wisconsin, for just a handful of family and friends in an historic chapel, St. Patrick’s, there he shook my hand, told a bad joke, and afterwards at the reception shared a beer. That was the start of an awkward relationship, at best. You know what they say: you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family, and certainly not your in-laws. But as the old joke goes: what’s the difference between in laws and outlaws?... outlaws are wanted. You’re thrown into social situations with people who, were you not obligated, you almost certainly wouldn’t bother seeing at all.

  “What are you doing with Chase Martin?” Ben asked.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Ok. Ok.” He touched my elbow and led me down the path that went to their front gate, further from the family. “I lost money with Chase.”

  Again, I didn’t respond.

  “He’s not a nice guy, Jack. He’s the scum of the earth. A group of us invest
ed with him, he ripped us all off, and has almost bankrupted me. Ruined everything I’ve worked hard to gain. I want nothing to do with him. I’ve tried to arrest him for fraud, but it’s no use, he’s always got these high-powered lawyers protecting his sorry ass.”

  He was starting to get flustered, but still no response from me. I let him stew.

  Silence can be the heaviest of statements. Under the pressure of silence, under the thunderous weight of quiet, a nervous person can try to fill the gaps with information, try and fill the quiet with knowledge. Sometimes lies, but often the truth. And what usually happens is that a person spills so much more than they ever intended to. I’m sure he did it when the roles were reversed and he was a cop interrogating someone, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t just as susceptible to it as well.

  Finally, he sighed.

  “Ok, Jack. Yes, I invested Claire’s money.”

  “That money was for Alannah’s college fund. She left that behind in her will for Alannah.” I grunted, turning to face him square on and look him in the eye. “That wasn’t your money to invest.”

  I could feel my blood rising. I was angry. And getting more so. At what he’d done but also at the thought of anything associated with Claire. It seemed like a slap in her face, the undoing of her kind gesture through his own stupidity. But for now, I controlled my emotions. I had to, for the sake of the case, for my own sanity, and most of all for young Millie. She needed me to solve this case and get her back home safe, if I lost my temper now it could only hinder that from happening. I needed Ben to talk, to unburden himself with the truth for me to use every bit of information he provided to go after the guilty party.

  “I know. I know. You don’t think I feel horrible about this? This fight against Chase Martin has almost made us bankrupt, and the stress of it all has nearly sent me over the edge. I’m a man on the edge, Jack. I don’t know how much more I can take. I’ve worked hard all my life for what I’ve got. And now it’s all gone. And my health is going too. The cost of medical bills is almost too much for us to bear. And it’s all Chase Martin’s fault.”

  “My heart bleeds,” I said bluntly. “And what do you mean ‘worked hard’? That money was from Claire. You didn’t do anything for it.”

  I know he was having a hard time of it, and I did genuinely care about his health issues and where he was going to find the money to pay for his medical treatment, but I was angry too and not in the mood to be emotionally blackmailed by his tale of woe.

  He held up his hands in surrender. “I put my own money in too. Everything. He told us that the investment was foolproof. He told us that we would triple our money in a month. Just about guaranteed it to us. But…” He sighed and ran his hand over his hair. “But of course, it was too good to be true. The prick was setting us up. Took us for a ride. As soon as we invested the money, the company declared bankruptcy. We lost everything.”

  “Bad timing?”

  “Not a chance. It was a house of cards just waiting to fall. After we lost the money, I did some digging and he’s run this scam before. Many times, as it happens. The companies—”

  “The companies?”

  “Like I said, it’s not the first time he’s run this scam. He runs it about once a year. The companies are owned in untouchable places, such as the Cayman Islands. In my investigations, I found out that Chase Martin is a horrible investor and an even worse human being.”

  “But a good scammer.”

  “Exactly. He’s a great salesman. A con artist, really. The only way he makes money is by ripping people off. And this time, he ripped off ten former army soldiers, including me. Destroyed some lives in the process.”

  “And how did you get involved?”

  “An ex-army brother in arms, Chuck Kowalski, who I’ve kept in touch with over the years, he’s had some really low times, struggled with PTSD, but he was coming out of it, starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. He thought this investment was going to put him on a new path. Even borrowed money from his elderly mother to make up the full amount. He was excited, he convinced me to meet with Chase, and boy, was he a smooth talker.” He trailed off for a moment and I could see the anger simmering beneath the surface.

  Was he angry enough to do the unthinkable?

  The vulnerable make the best scam targets. When someone is down, when their defenses are weakened, they look for a way out, an exit from the current path they’re on.

  “Making ten ex-army men angry is a dangerous game to play.”

  “Well, he played it. And it seems he has enough money to get away with it. We’re out of options and can’t afford to do anything else anyway. We tried the legal route, initially, but he knows we can’t afford to take it to court. He’ll tie it up for years. We don’t have the resources for a fight like that, and he knows it.”

  Ben closed his eyes, lowered his head to his hand and massaged his forehead. With a sigh, he raised his head and met my unyielding gaze.

  “I’m really sorry, Jack, I really am. I was only trying to do the best for my family, for my little girl. It’s so hard these days, to afford a good education, a house, even bringing a baby into the world just costs so much money, I only wanted to make it so Alannah didn’t have to worry about any of that. Now she’ll be even worse off.”

  He shrugged as though accepting this fate.

  “So what’s your involvement with Chase? I hope you’re not considering investing.”

  I scoffed at the thought.

  “You know me, Ben. That’s not my style.” I stared at him, searching his face for clues. “I can’t tell you what I’m working on, but I need you to tell me something—where were you on Saturday morning?”

  “Yesterday.” He flinched. Pulled on his ear lobe. “I was out fishing. Getting some time to myself.”

  With his small grooming movements, Ben was dispersing the nervous energy of his falsehood. To a casual observer, that small error might be overlooked as a normal gesture, it might be written off as the nerves of an unstable person under difficult circumstances, but I wasn’t a casual observer, and this was not a casual conversation.

  “Anyone able to verify that you were out fishing yesterday morning?”

  “Sorry, Jack. I was alone. Not even a fish to verify it.” He tried to convey a fake chuckle, only highlighting his lie.

  I almost felt offended that he thought his amateur attempts at deception would work on an old pro like me. I stared at him for a long moment.

  “If you hear anything about Chase or that money, you need to call me right away.”

  He nodded his response, and I left with the information, heading back to my waiting Chevy.

  But I knew it wasn’t the whole truth. I knew he was holding something back. And I also knew that I was going to find out what it was, no matter the consequences.

  A girl’s life was on the line and time was running out fast.

  Chapter 6

  The most crucial stage of any private investigation work wasn’t the inspection of the crime scene or scenario to be investigated, it wasn’t the identifying of potential witnesses or suspects, or the interviewing of those individuals. Nope. The most essential step, the step that showed an investigator what he needed to know the most, was the collection of information gathered about the person hiring the investigator. The person who should be beyond reproach, but seldom is.

  Ordinary, regular people with ordinary, regular lives don’t hire private investigators. People who are in trouble, people who have messed up, hire investigators. And more often than not, they’re holding something back. And what they are holding back was often of imminent importance.

  By the time I had arrived back in my office after talking to my brother-in-law, Casey May already had a file on my desk. The beauty of investigating in the age of the internet was that the information was readily available at a few clicks of a mouse.

  Chase Martin grew up in a poor family in Detroit, his father was a blue collar worker, his mother a housewife. The yo
ungest of three brothers and one sister, he was always striving for attention, always trying to gather a response.

  His school records didn’t show anything outstanding, nor did the reviews of his academic record at university. His yearbook quote was brief and unimaginative, ‘I play to win’, but it pretty much summed Chase up. I could see from his photo he was not a bad looking kid. I suppose that helps when you plan to spend your life charming people then ripping them off.

  He had had one run-in with the law when he was fifteen for trying to sell fake handbags at a festival, but other than that, his nose was clean. On paper at least.

  He’d spent ten years working for a small investment firm, before branching out on his own. And that’s where his career really took a turn for the better, or worse, depending on your perspective. The claims of fraudulent behavior were long, and varied, but nothing stuck, nothing held up in a court of law.

  He was either lucky, innocent, or very cunning.

  I was going with the third option.

  “Anything from Ben?” Casey asked.

  “A hint, but nothing more. I don’t buy his alibi, but I didn’t see any evidence of a kidnapping.” I sat behind the desk in my office, flicking through the file on Chase Martin.

  To the untrained eye my office was a dump, my desk had a virtual pyramid of old random case notes piled up in the middle, intermingled with old newspapers, random automobile and pick-up truck magazines, empty packs of cigarettes, even a couple of empty pizza boxes; OK, perhaps more than just a couple of boxes, but this wasn’t an interior design project, it was my workplace. It sure wasn’t pretty or organized, but then as Einstein once said, ‘If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what then, is an empty desk a sign?’ I liked it that way and it worked for me.

  “What’ve you got?” I asked Casey.

  “I’m still working on the list of his most recent investors, but I think you’re going to enjoy your first interview this morning. The location anyway. The ex-wife works as a bartender not far from here in Logan Square. She usually works the dead shift—Sunday morning from eleven.”