Conspiracy

by Allan Topol

  Chapter 10

  Taylor stood alone on a dock jutting into the Chesapeake Bay, watching the senator pilot the Sally II, a 125-foot dual-engine Chris-Craft, back in to shore. The conversation she planned to have with him had taken on a special urgency at seven this morning, when Coop had dropped by her Watergate apartment with a bag of bagels and muffins, along with a couple of cappuccinos. "Room service," he had called out, but everything tasted dry once he told her that he had heard from Ed Dawson. Cady had flown to San Francisco and was driving north toward Napa when Dawson lost him. Napa meant he was looking for something specific.

  The first one off the boat was Wes Young, a burly Secret Service agent who had played fullback at Penn State. His hazel eyes squinted in the bright noon sun as he scanned the landscape. Another agent followed Young. Then came a tall, handsome man with thick black hair, wild and out of control, who was dressed in old faded jeans and a bulky blue sweater. His face had a ruddy glow from the sun. He was about forty, Taylor guessed. That had to be Emilio Cipriani. Behind the painter came the senator, walking with grim determination and resolve.

  Ignoring Taylor, Sally bounded from the house and went to the edge of the dock, where Boyd was showing Emilio how to tie up the boat.

  "How about lunch?" Sally asked. "They delivered the most incredible oysters and crabs this morning."

  "Sounds wonderful," Emilio said in English tinged with a heavy Italian accent.

  Boyd looked around anxiously until he spotted Taylor, who moved back onto the grass that ran up to the large white house. "You two go ahead and eat," he said to Sally and Emilio. "Taylor and I have to talk. We'll join you up at the house later."

  Taylor expected an outburst from Sally. Then she saw her fawning over Emilio and decided that she was happy to be alone with the painter. That way she would hustle him better about her art gallery.

  Boyd grabbed two sweatshirts from the deck of the boat, tied one around his shoulders, and tossed the other one to Taylor. "Come on," he said, "let's take a walk."

  The property, which the senator was renting for a year from a wealthy friend who spent most of the time in France, was an estate on ten acres of waterfront on the bay. The six-bedroom house and smaller guesthouse were well concealed from the neighbors. Except when Boyd visited, which had been infrequently, the only visitors were a lawn and caretaker crew that came twice a week.

  Young and the other agent were following about ten yards behind. "You guys can stay back here," Boyd said to Young. "We're just walking along the water. You'll be able to see us clearly."

  For the first minute they walked in silence. Then the senator said, "Any more information on what you told me about the investigation by this guy Cady?"

  "I learned that Cady's out in Napa for the weekend. People are beginning to talk."

  The senator paused and kicked a stone viciously. It bounced and rolled to the edge of the water.

  "On the substance," she added, "about all I know is that Cady's focusing on your first congressional election."

  "I didn't do a damn thing wrong. I financed my campaign with the sale of Mill Valley."

  "Why don't you tell me all of the facts relating to your sale of Mill Valley ten years ago?"

  "That's a good idea." Boyd shoved his hands into his pockets. "Look here, my congressional campaign got off to a good start. Then Broder began cashing in the chips that he had collected from being an incumbent so long. You know how that goes."

  He waited for her to nod before continuing. "By August I could see that it was going to come down to money. Broder had been building a war chest for the last two years, and my fund-raising effort was scraping the bottom of the barrel. I needed a pot of new money. The campaign laws placed severe limits on how much I could get from an outside source, but I could pump in as much of my own money as I had. So I started talking to some local bankers to see if I could get a mortgage on Mill Valley. The banks hated the idea because if I won, I'd be in Washington. Without me running the winery, they saw it going down the tubes. And I couldn't blame them. The wine business is always speculative. It would be a risky proposition. So I finally decided to bite the bullet and to sell the land and the business."

  "How'd you put it up for sale?"

  "The usual way. I gave it to a local agent."

  "Who?"

  "A man named Harvey Gladstone."

  "Is he still around?"

  Boyd shrugged. "Never heard from or seen him since."

  Taylor made a mental note to call Mark Jackson, a P.I. she regularly used at the law firm, and ask him to locate Gladstone. "Then what happened?"

  "Two weeks later Gladstone brought me in a contract for ten million."

  She let out an involuntary whistle. "That sounds like an awful lot of money for Mill Valley."

  "You have to remember that at that point in time, ten years ago, premium wineries in Napa looked like a growth business. American consumption was up, and we were ready to challenge the French on quality. Since then, of course, the business has gone to hell. I got lucky. I sold at the top of the market."

  She nodded. "I guess that's right."

  "Also, Gladstone did a bang-up job for me. Somehow he found a foreign buyer with lots of cash."

  "Who bought Mill Valley?"

  "A French company out of Lyon by the name of Maison Antibes. They're in the wine business in Burgundy. They were anxious to get a foothold in Napa Valley."

  "A cash transaction?"

  "All cash."

  "What about Gladstone's commission?"

  "I don't remember exactly. Is that important?"

  "At this point, I'm not sure what's important."

  "Look here, six percent is the standard commission."

  "So you paid him six hundred thousand dollars?"

  Boyd nodded. "Yeah, that sounds right."

  "Did you make any other payments to Gladstone at the time?"

  He looked at her, annoyed. "No. Why would I? He got his commission. That's all."

  Taylor thought he had sounded tentative in his answer. In fairness, though, the events had happened years ago. "Who interacted with the French company?"

  "Jesus, what difference does it make?" He regarded her with a stern eye. "This sounds like a cross-examination. You're making me feel like a hostile witness."

  A chilly wind began blowing off the bay. Boyd untied his sweatshirt and put it on.

  "Sorry if I sound aggressive in my questioning, but I'll need to know everything if we're going to have a chance. Cady is one tough adversary."

  He smiled. "Don't worry about it. That's what I get for retaining the best lawyer in Washington. What was the question?"

  "Who interacted with the French company?"

  "Oh, yeah, Gladstone primarily. I spent several hours showing one of their people around the place. That was all I had to do with the negotiations."

  "Who was it?"

  "I don't understand."

  "The person you met with?"

  He held his hands out. "I don't remember exactly. He had a French name that sounded like Chapel, something like that."

  "Did you have any other dealings with the purchaser?"

  "Not until the closing."

  "At either of those times, or at any other time, did any of the French people say anything at all to you about politics, Congress, or how you would vote if you were elected?"

  "Negative. Never. Not one word."

  His story made sense. The French wouldn't meddle in American politics this way. Who had put Cady on to this bogus case? she wondered.

  "Based on what you just told me, Cady doesn't have squat. What we don't know is whether someone fed him forged documents, and if they did, whether he'll be able to figure it out."

  The senator blinked at the possibility of forged documents. "What will you do with all of this?"

  "I'd like to get one of my partners in the law firm involved. Somebody who deals with white-collar criminal matters full-time, like Ken—"

  Boyd cut her
off in midsentence. "Nope. No way. It's got to be you alone. I know you. I've got confidence in you, and there's less chance of a leak."

  "But—"

  "No buts on this."

  She sighed in resignation. "Okay. I'll go to see Cady Monday. Try to get him to stop his investigation."

  "Do you think Cady will drop it?"

  "It's hard to know. Would you be willing to put your statement about the Mill Valley transaction under oath, if I thought that was helpful after I meet with him?"

  "Absolutely. I've done nothing wrong. I've got nothing to hide."

  The certainty with which he said it reassured her. Still, with everything at stake, she said, "Please go through all of the facts in your mind one more time. Our whole strategy depends on your version of the facts, that you did nothing wrong when you sold Mill Valley. If Cady can come up with evidence to show that there's an error in our story, he'll seize on that and push ahead. I know how prosecutors operate."

  "I've had a lot of time to think about what happened. The facts I just told you are absolutely correct."

  Taylor believed him. "Okay, I'll deal with Cady on Monday. For the next twenty-four hours we have to forget about Cady and do debate preparation. Otherwise Webster will crush you Monday night, and Cady's investigation will be moot. You'll be out of the race for all practical purposes, which," she added darkly, "is the objective of whoever induced Cady to launch his investigation."

  Chapter 11

  Clutching a black leather briefcase, Cady opened the glass door that said, Napa County Tax Records. A polite young woman with short brown hair, wearing a freshly laundered white blouse and blue skirt, got up from behind her desk and walked out to the counter to greet Cady. She had the face of an innocent farm girl. The name tag on her blouse said, Karen.

  He didn't see anyone else in the office. "Pretty quiet, isn't it?" he said.

  "We don't get many visitors on a Saturday. What can I do for you?"

  Cady showed her his DOJ identification, which neither impressed nor intimidated her. "Like I said, what can I do for you?"

  "About ten years ago..." Cady began; then he checked the papers in his briefcase and gave her the precise date. "Charles Boyd sold Mill Valley Corporation to a company by the name of Maison Antibes. I want to know the purchase price of what was sold and whether it included the business and the land." He expected her to have some reaction to his mention of Charles Boyd. Either she didn't relate the Democratic presidential candidate to his inquiry, or she didn't care, or maybe she didn't even know who was running. He thought it was odd.

  "Give me a couple of minutes," she said.

  With quiet efficiency she moved back to her desk and a computer. He watched her punching keys. "Do you want a printout?" she asked him.

  "Please."

  A few minutes later she handed him a single-page document, showing that Maison Antibes had paid Boyd a total of fifty million dollars for the stock of the Mill Valley Corporation, which included the winery and the land. That was consistent with the statement in the materials that had been mysteriously dumped on his desk.

  If everything else panned out, Cady decided, he would have a case to take to the grand jury. He began thinking about evidence. It wasn't necessary to have Karen fly to Washington. He could have her authenticate the printout, but original documents would be better.

  "Where do you keep the back-up for these records?" Cady asked.

  Karen looked puzzled. "This is all we have."

  "But when you put the information in the computer, didn't you store the original documents somewhere?"

  "Oh, that," she said, nodding. "We only keep back-up for the past five years. For earlier than that, the original documents are discarded. The computer is the only record."

  This also sounded odd. "Really?"

  "Yeah, that's how we do it out here."

  Cady was surprised, but during the year he had spent practicing law in San Francisco, he had learned that anything was possible with the state government in California.

  He asked Karen to write on the printout that it was a record of the state of California, then sign and date the document. He tucked it into his briefcase and left the office.

  * * *

  From Napa, Cady drove north on Route 29, traversing the valley floor with vineyards on both sides, passing the most prestigious producers in the American wine industry: Mondavi, Grgich Hills, and Beaulieu, among others, all properties of enormous financial value. But not fifty million for something the size of Mill Valley, he thought. That winery was a couple of miles to the east along the Silverado Trail.

  Continuing north, Cady took a left in Calistoga and drove up the winding road that led over the western ridge of the valley. The view of the lush fields far below was incredible, but Cady tried not to look at it while driving, because the road dropped off sharply. What kept running through Cady's mind was: I hope to hell Harvey Gladstone never drives this at night when he's had too much to drink.

  Toward the top of the peak sat a wooden rambler that Cady guessed was fifty years old. The outside looked shabby, with faded yellow paint that was peeling in scores of places. In contrast, the front yard was carefully maintained, with clusters of flowers and a vegetable garden on one side.

  Cady walked along the cracked cement path that led to the front porch. After he rang the bell and waited for several minutes without an answer, he peeked in the front window, through an opening in the curtains. A woman was talking on the phone. Cady rang the bell again, while watching her through the window.

  This time she hung up, walked over to the door, and opened it a crack. She was a gray-haired woman with a leathery, wrinkled face. She had been crying, and was wiping her wet, bloodshot eyes with a tissue.

  "I'm looking for Harvey Gladstone," Cady said.

  "He's not here," she said, immediately frightened.

  "Do you know when he'll be back?"

  "He's not in business anymore. You'll have to find somebody else."

  She started to close the door, but Cady put his foot in the doorway.

  "Are you Mrs. Gladstone?"

  She nodded and wiped away more tears.

  "My name's C. J. Cady. I'm from the Department of Justice in Washington. I'd like to talk to you." He took his government ID from his pocket and held it up to the crack in the door.

  She didn't move to let him inside.

  "Please, Mrs. Gladstone. It's important government business."

  With great reluctance she opened the door. "But only for a few minutes."

  Inside the house, Cady felt as if he were in a time warp. All of the furniture was from the fifties.

  She wiped her eyes one more time, blew her nose, and tossed the tissue in a wastebasket. "Look here, Mr. Cady. I don't mean to be rude. This isn't a good time for me. I've got a grandson down in Los Angeles who's real sick."

  "I'm awfully sorry."

  "Well, there's nothing you can do about that, unless you know where he can get a new heart for a transplant."

  She started to sob again. This time she wiped her face with the sleeve of her faded plaid dress. "I'm okay now. You want some cider? It's homemade."

  "Yes, thank you."

  She fetched him a glass from the kitchen and handed it to him. "I don't know what you want to see Harvey about, but my husband's had two heart attacks. He's not supposed to get upset. Maybe I can help you? That way you won't have to bother him."

  Cady looked at her sympathetically. "I appreciate the offer, but I'm afraid that won't work. If you tell me where he is, I promise to talk to him without getting him upset."

  "What did he do wrong?"

  "Him? Nothing. I want to talk to him about something that somebody else did. I may need him as a witness. So where is he?"

  "Fishing."

  "When will he be home?"

  She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next Sunday."

  He couldn't tell if she was being deliberately vague or not. "He must have a pho
ne there, or a cell phone. Why don't you give me that number, and I'll call him?"

  She shook her head. "He's in the mountains. No phones."

  "Then tell me where he's fishing. I'll go find him."

  She looked down at the floor. "Sorry, I don't know. When he goes off fishing, he stays in the cabin one of his buddies has up there. Harvey has never told me where, and I don't ask. When a man gets to be his age, he's allowed to enjoy himself, and fishing is what Harvey likes to do. Me, I like gardening and making cider. He doesn't bother me when I do those things. That's how we've had such a good marriage all these years. We give each other space. Are you married, Mr. Cady?"

  "Actually, I'm divorced."

  "Well, I'm sorry to hear that."

  She sounded genuine, and she was obviously upset about her grandchild. Cady, the tough prosecutor, couldn't bring himself to lower the boom on her, though she was giving him the runaround. "It's quite important that I talk to Harvey."

  "What do you want to talk to him about?"

  Cady would have liked to say it was none of her business, but he didn't want to sound like a tough Easterner. Besides, she might have some information herself. "The sale of Mill Valley about ten years ago. The Charles Boyd property."

  "I don't know anything about that," she said.

  From the terrified look on her face, Cady realized she was protecting her husband from something more than being upset. He decided to follow the nice-guy routine. "Listen, Harvey hasn't done anything wrong. I'm trying to help him because some other people who aren't as nice want to get him into trouble. But I can't help him unless I can talk to him. Are you following me?"

  She nodded.

  "Now, I know he's hiding out somewhere. If it's a buddy's cabin in the mountains, then that buddy can drive up and bring Harvey back. I don't care about any of that. But please get Harvey here in this house at nine a.m. on Monday, when an FBI agent will come to question him. Can you do that?"