Go-Between

by Lisa Brackmann

  There were all kinds of ways to manipulate this, she thought, to shield who was advocating or attacking. One 501(c)(4) could donate to another, which could then donate to another, and eventually to a 527 to directly support a candidate. A tide of Dark Money could be transferred from organization to organization, and no one would know where or who it came from.

  Companies and corporations could donate as much as they wanted, too. That check box for “Person” was what they marked as well. It seemed ludicrous, but she double-checked, and that was how it was done.

  And how hard would it be to disguise that money? If, say, the Boys wanted to contribute something? They had all kinds of shell companies to funnel money through. Donations to a 501(c)(4) weren’t tax deductible, but why would they care about that?

  They cared about buying influence. About purchasing elections.

  Would an IRS auditor reviewing a 501(c)(4) look at a contribution from, say, a Blue Sky Enterprises and bother to check where that money came from, how Blue Sky had gotten it, as long as the paperwork looked okay?

  “SAF” stood for “Safer America Foundation.” It was a 501(c)(3), so not involved in political work. She’d hardly started to dig into those forms yet, so she wasn’t entirely sure what Safer America Foundation did. The mission statement was almost the same as Safer America Action: “To advocate for the victims of crime in the United States and to research and implement effective strategies to reduce crime and build safer communities.”

  Caitlin was president of both organizations.

  Even with more time and a greater understanding of what these organizations were and how they were supposed to function, she still couldn’t tell if Safer America was doing anything illegal from these forms. Things like “office expenses” and “other salaries and wages” and “total lobbying expenditures” and “other exempt purposes expenditures,” “temporarily restricted net assets,” “endowment funds” and “leasehold improvements”—none of these entries was broken out in any way. It was impossible to look at this paperwork and know how Safer America received and spent its money.

  There were a couple of entries that she had to wonder about. “Land” and “buildings” listed under assets. Safer America Foundation owned some property, she could tell that much. One million dollars in land and some $650K in “buildings.”

  Caitlin was receiving a housing allowance. It was listed on the Schedule J for Safer America Foundation, $50,000. And if she was reading the instructions correctly, this should have been listed in Column F, “other compensation,” for the Safer America Foundation.

  But it wasn’t. The numbers didn’t add up.

  Maybe it was included as part of the over $500K of “other employee benefits” that weren’t broken out in any way that she could tell.

  And why was a woman already making a nearly $300K salary receiving a housing allowance in the first place? For a house that she owned?

  Safer America owned $1,650,000 in land and buildings.

  How much was a house in River Oaks worth?

  She did a quick Google search. That amount wasn’t out of line.

  Was it possible that Safer America Foundation owned Caitlin’s home?

  But there was no way to tell from this public disclosure what the property was. Just that Safer America Foundation owned it.

  The one thing she could be sure of was that Caitlin made decent money from this charity. And so did Porter Ackermann.

  “I don’t know, maybe there’s some way we can work together,” Caitlin said suddenly.

  “I’m sorry?”

  Caitlin and Michelle were finishing up their workout on the treadmill at the fancy River Oaks gym where Caitlin had a membership. “Except I never use it,” she’d said with a laugh. “Don’t worry, I’ll have Porter sign you up. You shouldn’t have to pay for it on my account.”

  It was a nice, clean gym, not crowded, obviously expensive, with its brand new equipment and track lights and wooden lockers. A big black dog greeted them in the foyer, “the gym mascot,” Caitlin explained.

  A neighborhood gym in a very wealthy neighborhood.

  “Troy Stone and me. Well, Safer America.” Caitlin blushed. Or maybe it was just the cardio.

  “Oh? What would you want to do?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s just that …” Caitlin’s steps slowed down a fraction. “You know, he has a point. If we really want to build safer communities, maybe we should be looking more to what we can do to strengthen them. Instead of just locking people up for longer and longer times.”

  “But on Prop. 391, on legalizing marijuana …”

  “I’m not sure we’re going to agree on that. But on the sentencing guidelines? I think he’s right. It costs too damn much to keep so many people in prison for such a long time.”

  “Oh.”

  It wasn’t that Michelle disagreed. If she was being honest with herself, she’d barely thought about the whole issue. It was only now, with Danny in jail, with her doing so many things that were so far from legal, that any of this had seemed relevant to her own life.

  It’s not my fault, she told herself. It wasn’t like she deserved to be in jail.

  She was just taking payoffs from drug cartels, that’s all. Thanks to a black ops agent embedded with a cabal of powerful men trying to run the country from deep in the shadows.

  But god forbid she should get caught with a joint in Texas.

  “Something on your mind?” Caitlin asked.

  “Not really, just …” She hesitated. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

  “Safe? What do you mean?”

  “Well, I mean … Troy. What do you know about him?”

  “Oh, honey, I’ve already started checking into him. His organization looks legit. He’s gotten some nice press coverage the past couple of years, too, for the work they’re doing.”

  “That’s … great. I’m just wondering … what will the board think?”

  There was no way for Michelle to say what she really wanted to say. That going against the board might be dangerous.

  Caitlin shrugged. “They can think what they want.” Her steps picked up speed. “I’m still the president and founder. If they don’t like it, they can find somebody else.” She grinned. “Now, that would be a mess.”

  Michelle had found out a few things about several of the board members just by using Google.

  Michael Campbell had been a police chief in several midsized California and Midwestern cities before he retired and took on his position at ALEAAG, the American Law Enforcement Agencies Advocacy Group. He was the Vice President of Communications there. As far as she could tell from their website and a few other hits, ALEAAG advocated for “vigorous support of law enforcement officers and agencies in their mission to protect and serve American communities,” which meant, among other things, increasing police department budgets and police officer salaries, supporting programs that supplied local law enforcement agents with surplus US military equipment (apparently local police departments really needed armored personnel carriers), lobbying for laws that empowered local police departments to seize assets from lawbreakers, particularly drug-related lawbreakers, and then use said assets to fund police programs.

  Then there was Randall Gates, of Prostatis.

  Prostatis owned and operated prisons, along with “other correctional facilities.”

  The private prison industry was a big business. Prostatis was not the largest private prison company—it came in third—but the company’s revenue last year was still close to a billion dollars. They housed around 30,000 offenders in some twenty-plus facilities, on contract with federal, state and local governments. Their annual report talked about Prostatis’s business model, how they required a steady stream of income, a certain number of beds filled, reliable profits for their shareholders. It came down to occupancy rate, as much as anything else. Like they were running some kind of hotel.

  A hotel with a government contract guaranteeing 90% occupancy and a certain ch
arge per bed.

  “Our fully modernized facilities and state-of-the-art technology enable us to promote staffing efficiencies,” the annual report said.

  Meaning fewer guards.

  Prostatis was guaranteed a price per inmate, and the lower the operating cost, the more of that money they got to keep. What other corners were getting cut Michelle wondered.

  Prostatis advertised its prison labor force on the company’s website.

  “Correctional work opportunities promote individual responsibility by offering offenders a chance to pay back their debts to society and learn valuable new skills. We are privileged to play a part in inmate rehabilitation through labor and also to offer cost-effective, high-quality workers for some of America’s best companies. Our inmate workers provide staffing for industries ranging from computer, garment and aviation manufacturing to telemarketing to farming and harvesting. We are especially honored to produce helmets, bulletproof vests and more for our armed forces.”

  At nineteen cents an hour, with no benefits. She’d found that number with a little extra Googling.

  The annual report also dealt with potential risk factors for investors.

  “Demand for our services is greatly influenced by local, state and federal law enforcement and judicial practices. Increased leniency in enforcement, sentencing and parole policies, as well as the decriminalization or legalization of activities previously classified as criminal, could result in a decreased demand and therefore smaller than forecast profits.”

  The CEO of Prostatis made $2.5 million a year. Randall Gates, the CFO, made $1.7 million.

  It wasn’t hard to see what stakes Michael Campbell and Randall Gates had in steering Safer America’s priorities in certain directions.

  What about Debbie Landry? She came across like a typical society lady—one invested in her charities and fundraisers, because that was what you did in her position.

  Like I used to do, Michelle thought.

  But she couldn’t assume this was all there was to Debbie. She couldn’t assume anything about any of these people.

  Like Matthew Moss. He had to be getting something out of this beyond travel expenses to make speeches. No way he was doing all this for free.

  And Steve? She didn’t even know his last name.

  x x x

  The staff meeting wasn’t all that interesting. Porter was there, but there was no one else from the board meeting except for Caitlin. Instead it was the VP of Development, the Managing Director, the Director of Communications, the Events Manager, some assistants, people Michelle had met in passing or hadn’t met at all, cloistered as she generally was with Caitlin in her River Oaks home.

  The campaign to defeat Prop. 275 and Prop. 391 had a name now: “The Coalition to Protect Our Communities.” The event in Los Angeles was “a great success.” They hoped for great things in San Francisco, though this event would be “smaller scale, in a more intimate setting.”

  “We’ll have two more email blasts going out. But I think we need to work on the buy-in for donors who can’t be there in person.”

  “San Francisco’s not the most fertile territory for us.”

  “We’ll do all right.” Porter sat to Caitlin’s right, his bulk settled into the conference room chair, watchful and still. “The prison guards union will send some folks our way, for one. And there’s plenty of concerns about public safety there, for another, even if all those terribly enlightened folks like to pretend otherwise.” He snorted a little. Amused at his own joke.

  “CCPOA has its own PACs,” the Director of Development said.

  “Sure. But I think they also appreciate what we can bring to the table. And they’ve got a lot of money to spend. You find me a bigger heavyweight in California politics than the prison guards union. And it so happens that our interests align.”

  At that, Porter shifted in his chair. “I’m going to have to run. I have an appointment across town.”

  Caitlin leaned over to Michelle. “I’m with him,” she whispered. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Michelle pulled Caitlin’s Lexus SUV into the garage. It wasn’t just the possibility of Caitlin’s drinking that had Michelle playing chauffeur. Caitlin really didn’t like to drive very much. “I don’t know, the traffic’s so bad here these days, it’s just not fun,” she’d said with an off-hand wave.

  “I’m happy to drive,” Michelle had said, suspecting that Caitlin’s nerves had more to do with her attack than Houston traffic.

  “I was wondering,” Michelle said now, as the garage door closed behind them. “Would it make sense for me to … familiarize myself a little with the donor database?”

  Caitlin frowned. “Well, I don’t know. Is there some reason you want to? I don’t know that it enters in much to the work you’re doing for me.”

  Shit, Michelle thought.

  She ran over the arguments she’d worked out in advance. Opened the driver’s door and stepped out, slammed the door shut. Drew a deep breath, taking in the scent of stale gasoline and hot concrete. She waited for Caitlin to exit the SUV, punching in the access code to unlock the door that led into the house, through the kitchen.

  The blast of air conditioning prickled the sweat on her skin.

  “There’s a couple of things. I noticed there’s an Events section, and I thought it might make sense for me to be able to enter miscellaneous travel expenses directly into that. I mean, I’m assuming it tracks expenses for the events?”

  “I think so.” Caitlin paused in front of the refrigerator and opened the door.

  Was she buying this? Michelle couldn’t tell. She couldn’t see Caitlin’s face. She could only see Caitlin’s back as she grabbed an open bottle of chardonnay from the refrigerator.

  “You want a glass, hon?” Caitlin asked.

  “No thanks.”

  For all she knew, Caitlin was complicit in this whole thing, whatever it was. Some of that money, from the unnamed donors, from the “other compensation and benefits,” could easily be ending up in her pockets, and there was just no way to tell.

  Caitlin hesitated by the refrigerator door. “Maybe I’ll skip it too.” She replaced the bottle and closed the refrigerator, almost gently, as though she might have regretted her choice.

  Michelle took a moment to hang the Lexus keys on the hooks by the garage door, then followed Caitlin through the kitchen.

  “Also I thought it might be a good idea, when we go to an event, for me to have a little background on the donors. Like for this San Francisco trip. Who’s going to be there, what they’ve contributed. And other donors in the area who you might want to reach out to.” Michelle smiled, gave a little chuckle. Don’t overplay this, she told herself. “Just so I can back you up a little better.”

  They’d entered the Great Room. Michelle could hear the distant whine of a vacuum cleaner, somewhere in the house.

  “Well, I guess that makes sense,” Caitlin finally said, tossing her beige Prada tote onto the sofa. “Tell you what, let’s dig into it first thing Monday morning. Cause you know what I’d really like to do right now? A yoga class.”

  “Okay,” Michelle said. “Sounds good.”

  Deep, cleansing breaths.

  It was a risk going to see him, now that she was Michelle again. She had to go as Emily, but what if someone recognized her as Michelle?

  Not likely, she told herself. Who among Caitlin’s friends and the Safer America crew would be visiting an inmate at Harris County Jail?

  Saturday, 5:30 pm. There were so many visitors here tonight. Michelle supposed that made sense. No visiting hours at all on Thursday and Friday, no visiting hours until 3:30 on Saturday. The weekend, so people had time off. Maybe. Looking at the crowd around here, as usual, mostly women, she wondered how many of them had the kind of jobs where they worked Saturdays and Sundays. Fast food. Retail. Jobs that didn’t pay well. Some of them likely didn’t have jobs at all. Deondra, the woman she’d met on her first visit here, she’d looked like she worked in
an office, put-together outfits, styled hair, but so many of these women, dressed in Tshirts and leggings and cheap, bright cotton chinos, she could picture them running registers in a McDonalds somewhere, stocking shelves at Walmart.

  She wasn’t sure, of course. She couldn’t know. Her brain was just spinning scenarios as she waited in line after line in the refrigerated, chemical, stale-piss chill of Harris County Jail.

  She noticed it more, this time, how many of the people waiting were black, and brown. Oh there were white people too, about a third, she estimated, but surely the population visiting this jail didn’t reflect the overall demographics of Houston. More than a third of the population of Houston couldn’t be African American, but more than a third of the people waiting here—the women waiting here—were black.

  Well, they just must commit more crimes.

  Was that a friend’s voice she heard, some embarrassing relative’s, Matthew Fucking Moss’s or her own?

  If they do, there are reasons.

  Whose voice was that?

  You know that blacks are ten times more likely to go to prison for a drug offense than whites? Even though they use drugs at about the same rates?

  That was Troy Stone.

  She looked around, at the lines of people, of women, shuffling along on scuffed-up linoleum, at the guards in their uniforms, at the metal detectors, thought about the pods and floors of prisoners in this massive building, and felt for a moment that the weight of it all might crush her.

  Who was making money off this?

  “Hey. I like the hair.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah.” He grinned. “You look like a rock star.”

  She had to smile. “I don’t think so.”

  His own grin wavered. He looked so pale, from what she could see through the glass. Maybe the light in here did that to everyone, but she didn’t think it was just the light. Had he been outside at all since he’d been arrested?

  He leaned closer to the glass. His cheek was bruised, she noticed now. Not badly. But she could see it.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  He closed his eyes and shook his head. “It’s not … there’s no point. There’s nothing …”