Mystery and Suspense:The Tipping Point: A mystery thriller full of intrigue about greed, fraud and murder... (International Mystery: Book 1)

by Walter Danley

  Seventeen

  “Life is like a coin. You can spend it any way you wish, but you can only spend it once.” ~ Lillian Dickson

  SUNDAY—OCTOBER | The call from Detective Susan Daugherty on Sunday morning surprised Wainwright.

  “So, Detective, what are you doing in the office on a bright and beautiful Sunday morning?”

  “Hey, California Beach Boy, it’s not so bright and beautiful in Chicago. They say it’ll be sleet by noon. I don’t know what happened to that great Indian summer we had goin’. But to give your question an answer, I’m here to go through the file on Clyburn. Thought I’d call you with a couple of questions.”

  Wainwright’s Pacific Daylight Savings time was two hours later than the detective’s. He’d planned to sleep in this morning, but he couldn’t. He hadn’t been sleeping well lately, thinking about the mess someone dumped on his company. He’d been up long enough this morning to have his second cup of coffee in his hand when Daugherty called his home. By default, Wainwright had become the go-to guy at CapVest for the Clyburn killing. No other partner wanted the job.

  Daugherty split tradition at the Chicago Police Department. She came from a family of Irish cops who served the city with pride and distinction, but she was the first female to advance to homicide detective on the force. The distinction was, in part, her passion for the job. And she was relentless.

  “Clyburn’s death is still listed as homicide during a carjacking,” Daugherty said. “There is a bit o’ news concerning the murder of Cassie, the hooker Clyburn hired to entertain him.” Daugherty had reservations about collaborating with a murder victim’s friends and family, but this case troubled her. It sounded to Wainwright she seemed to be searching for information, rather than just giving it.

  “The coroner collected fluid samples from her body during the autopsy. Stains of pre-ejaculate were on her palms, cheeks, and in her mouth. They’ve run the blood, hair and semen samples through preliminary study, but have got precious little information,” Detective Daugherty explained. “What the lab did get was that the blood is type O positive, like about forty percent of the world’s population. The hair analysis eliminated Africans and Scandinavians. It established that the killer was not a drug abuser. That still leaves the rest of the world to look at. I’m afraid we’ve no place to go with this.”

  “But the trace evidence, it didn’t belong to Clyburn, right?”

  “That’s right. It belonged to a male, most likely of the Australian or Israeli race. As you may know, blood contains different proteins, which vary among races and gender. The specimen possibly came from a guy she was with before Clyburn called her, or it is from the killer. She was undressed for action when she died, if you know what I mean.

  “We know from phone records Clyburn called her at home and, shortly after that, she phoned him back—six minutes before the carjacking. We have witnesses at the scene that identified the jackers as Blackstone Rangers. Those dudes are out of Woodlawn…a bit off their turf that night.”

  “Where can we take this thing then, Detective Daugherty?”

  She responded with the company line, which she honestly didn’t believe in this circumstance. “Just leave all the exploration stuff to us, Mr. Wainwright. I understand your firm is eager to see this file closed, but believe me, there isn’t anything you can do that would be helpful,” she told him. Then, considering, she added, “Well, let me level with you, Mr. Wainwright. I’m not the lead on this case, as you know, but there’re some aspects that have me bothered a bit.”

  “Like that Ranger turf thing?”

  “Yes, and then there is the lab work. The other thing about all this is the Rangers.”

  “You mean about them being in that part of town?” Wainwright asked.

  “Well, yeah, there is that, too, but no, something else.”

  “Okay, what did I miss, Ms. Detective?”

  “That’s cute. No Ms., okay? I’ve lived in this city for thirty-seven years, and I can guarantee one thing for sure: the Blackstone Rangers don’t do carjacking or muggings. And for absolute, not in that part of town. They’ve got more profitable things happening than that, if you know what I mean.”

  “No, ma’am, I don’t think I do.”

  “And no ‘ma’am’ either, are we clear? ‘Detective’ is just fine.” She paused long enough to let that sink in. “The Rangers run drugs, girls, and the protection rackets. That’s big-time dough. This carjack thing is for punks. They wouldn’t bother.”

  “So what does all this tell you, Detective?”

  “It tells me it ain’t what it’s been made to look like. I’d say the Clyburn killing was a professional hit somebody paid the Rangers to make happen. And whoever paid is pretty big-time, too. Has to be, to move that mob around. I don’t know the reason, mind you, but they murdered your partner. Of that, I’m real sure, but analysis proves the Rangers didn’t kill Cassie.

  “The limo driver’s statement was Clyburn made that call to Cassie and then a few minutes later, she called back. He told the driver to take him to the liquor store to buy cigarettes. He didn’t smoke, so they were for her. Assuming she asked him to pick ’em up for her, she put Clyburn at the place where the Rangers waited to jump him. And that is exactly what happened.

  “There’s this other thing that gets me jumpy. The hooker, ah, Cassie, she was one of theirs…run by the Rangers. Always had been, the whole time she’d been a working girl. Bottom line, for me, anyway, your guy got put on a list by someone very large, and the Rangers took him out along with a very productive asset—on command.”

  “That all sounds like the case is wide open. What are you planning to do with your suspicions?”

  “This is the reason I’m in here on a Sunday. I’m putting my reports together to talk to the Loo first thing Monday morning. I think this so-called accident is a murder-for-hire.”

  After speaking with Detective Daugherty, Wainwright wanted to share the revelations with his Musketeer partners, to see if they could reinterpret the information. Wainwright also hoped that sharing the issues with the other two Musketeers would occasion new insights. A problem shared is a problem halved, as they say. Wainwright wanted more than anything to get this partner-killer. He was aware of being afraid for his own life, as well as those of his partners. Unlike his Navy experiences, this enemy had no face. On a lower degree of importance, Wainwright was now sure these murders and the fraud were connected. He wanted the guy, whoever he was, out of the company and out of commission, permanently.

  Wainwright dialed Keating at his home in Snoqualmie, but the answering machine picked up on the fourth ring. His message asked Keating to call him when he got in, then he dialed Tommy’s home phone. Tommy answered on the second ring.

  “Tommy, its Garth. I’ve got some news from the Chicago PD I think you’re going to want to hear.”

  The California Highway Patrol asked their Nevada counterparts to visit the Keating condominium and make the death notification. CHP got the address for his condominium in Lake Tahoe from Keating’s Nevada driver’s license. NHP Sargent Parkerson reported Caroline was still in shock late Saturday when he left her home. Parkerson wanted Caroline to be with someone close; a relative or neighbor. Caroline called Ed Hockney. He was the only person she could think of at the time that might suggest some form of help for her and the girls. Besides, as chairman of CapVest, Hockney needed to be told.

  Hockney volunteered to be the bearer of bad tidings to the rest of the board members and to Robert’s assistant, but he’d delay that chore until the morning. Hockney made his fifth Sunday call to Wainwright.

  “Oh my God, this can’t be happening to us, Ed. Someone is out to destroy our firm, and I’ll be damned if I can figure out who or why. I’m just crushed, that’s all I can say. I feel like I’ve been pounded into the ground like a tent peg and will never get up.”

  “I know you’re upset, we all are, but one of us who was close to Robert need to be respectful of Caroline and the girls. Thi
s is a tragic accident in a hyper-volatile atmosphere. Let’s not let our personal feelings influence others to imagine things that aren’t there.”

  “Aren’t there? Are you shitting me? For Christ’s sake, Ed, the bloody facts are there…right before your eyes if you’d just open them! Four, Ed; four murders in less than a year, and three of them were our partners. Good God, Ed, why don’t…” Frustration was not getting Wainwright anywhere. He took several deep breaths to shake it off, gain some composure. “Never mind.” Wainwright’s throat was closing with the pain of sorrow. He couldn’t talk anymore. “I’m sorry, Ed. Thanks for calling me. I know you have others to notify, but I just can’t talk right now. We’ll catch up tomorrow. You understand, I know. Bye.”

  Wainwright was trying to focus his thoughts on Caroline and her daughters, but his mind wandered. His anguish for his own kids kept creeping to the forefront to take the place he intended for the Keatings. Wainwright’s personal pain was the priority now. There was no use in talking to his ex about it. He didn’t need to be yelled at or hung up on again.

  What he did need was to see his boys, to talk to them. Wainwright knew he hadn’t been the best father; his travel schedule to Bellevue and being out of town for the job happened more often than he could count, but he sure wasn’t all that bad, either. Debbie had issues, always did, but pitting the boys against him was not going to continue.

  Shortly after he and Deb split, the boys enjoyed time at the beach with their dad. On those occasions when he’d be home on Friday and could take off the whole weekend, they’d pile in his Scout II and head up to Arrowhead. The then-family outing tradition was to pull off the road when they got into the mountain, put down the soft top, and ride to the cabin in the open air. Tim especially liked the feel of the pine-scented mountain air blowing over them. How long has it been since we did that?

  Wainwright smiled when he recalled their excitement as they discovered their dad had converted his condominium’s guest room into a slot car track. We played with that for months. What a ball the three of us had!

  The boys and Debbie still lived in the house they shared before the divorce. She wanted it in the property settlement, and he readily agreed. In fact, Wainwright didn’t fight any part of the divorce. Debbie wrote her own ticket and he let her have whatever she wanted. No fights and no arguments. He had two concerns: that his children were not traumatized any more than was going to happen naturally, and his visitation rights were fair and enforceable. Norman? He was not the fastest canoe on the river, but why would he allow Debbie to turn the kids against him? What did that get her, other than an angry ex and emotionally unstable children? By God in heaven, I’m going to find out the answer and put a stop to whatever is coming between my kids and me.

  Eighteen

  “We should not only master questions but also act upon them, and act definitely.” ~ Woodrow Wilson

  THURSDAY—OCTOBER |“Jesus Christ!” Tommy yelled. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have raised my voice, but you know what? This is pure bullshit!”

  Tommy never swore, so his outburst was a jolt to everyone at the small table. Just one more aspect of their tension at Robert Keating’s funeral services.

  Tommy, in aberrant pain, said, “Now…Keating makes three partners dead. Come on. How many of us will die before someone takes this shit seriously? This is murder, no question about it.”

  “Tommy, be calm. People are watching,” Shirley admonished, placing her hand over his.

  After the funeral service in the beautiful Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, the two couples sat in the lobby bar of the Sacramento Sherwood.

  “We’ve got a serial killer after CapVest partners, drug abuse on the board, and millions of dollars have been stolen. Calm down? I don’t think so.” Shaking off the tension, Tommy said, “Garth, what the hell is happening to us? You had it right from the beginning. I just couldn’t buy into all this mystery till now.”

  “I heard from Keating’s number two at the services this morning. Our banks are getting nervous about the credit line since Keating is gone,” Wainwright said. “I don’t know why, but you and I seem to be the only partners questioning any of this. When the three of us took it to Arnold, what happened? Nada, zero, zip, nothing. Has Arnold talked to you about the problem, or me? No. Has this been discussed at a board meeting? Again, no, and Arnold has avoided us like we are lepers. Well, I guess it’s true, like the old saying, “when all is said and done, more is said than done.” Tommy, were you able to discuss our little espionage question with BJ after the services? What’d she tell you?”

  “What was the question?” Lacey asked.

  Tommy responded to all of them. “The question is, ‘Where was BJ before she worked for Keating?’ She apparently gave Wainwright a different story when…aah, when…”

  “Tommy, it’s all right. I know they were involved,” Lacey said, laying her hand on Tommy’s other forearm, now pinned to the tabletop by the two women.

  “Anyway, the answer she gave to me this morning was she worked at Clyburn’s Chicago firm for the CFO, then moved here and went to work for Keating.”

  “Why would she lie to me about something like that? This makes me think she may have some part in this fraud thing,” Wainwright said. “As I see it, it’s obvious Arnold is a part of a conspiracy, maybe BJ, as well. No, that’s not correct. All we actually know for sure is you and I are not a part of any conspiracy and neither was Keating. Aah…you’re not, are you, Tommy, I mean, part of it, are you?”

  Both Shirley and Lacey failed to hide their giggles, shredding a bit more of the tension at the table. Tommy gave his longtime friend his most disgusted look, and then turned away, refusing to acknowledge the poor taste gibe.

  “Clearly, a conspiracy within the company supports the thief who may also be linked with the murders. We’ve done the ‘right thing,’ by going to the police. All they’ve completed is to hang their hats on the coroners’ reports that all three deaths were accidents. So nothing is going to happen from the cops, except maybe another of us gets whacked,” Wainwright said.

  “To report the fraud to the SEC would shut down the company, destroy our individual reputations and credibility, and put six hundred and fifty headquarters staff members out on the street. We’d all be out of business and personally fried forever in the financial community,” Tommy offered.

  No one spoke as all absorbed the wisdom of Tommy’s words. Then Wainwright quietly said, “Yeah, you know, I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that any of our partners is doing this. To find the who, we first need to understand the why. That is what we’ve got to discover…before someone else has an ‘accident’.” Then, to himself he thought, How in bloody hell can we find out the why?

  Wainwright and Lacey wanted to go to the California Highway Patrol and speak with the investigator assigned to the Keating case. Tommy and Shirley were more interested in getting back to Laguna Beach than staying. After taking them to their flight, Lacey and Wainwright drove their rent-a-car into downtown Sacramento, that jumble of state office buildings, lobbyist offices, and vendors to the huge state bureaucracy.

  Finding the CHP office was easy; finding the investigator for the Keating accident was more problematic. With the assistance of a student intern, they located and sat down with the inspector working the Keating case.

  “Inspector, my name is Garth Wainwright. I am a director of the Capital Vested Corporation. Robert Keating was my partner and CFO of those companies.” The inspector looks a little bored, Wainwright thought. “Are you aware Mr. Keating was the third partner to be killed ‘accidently’ in the past nine months? That is one third of our board; three of nine have been wacked and no one has the slightest idea of why. In addition to those three, there was another connected murder in Chicago, a prostitute who was involved in a death.”

  “I was not, no, sir,” the inspector admitted, sitting straighter in his chair, now with a glint of interest in his eye.

  “The purpose for our vi
sit with you is to give you the rest of the facts. We want you to contact the other investigators and coordinate information concerning these deaths. They are all linked, somehow, and none of them was an accident. There are just too many open issues, which, we believe, are interconnected. We need a quarterback to call the plays and put everything together so the whole can be examined. We hope you will be that person.” Wainwright handed the investigator a sheet of paper. “This is the contact information for the other detectives handling the deaths of Burke, Clyburn, and the prostitute, Cassie, together with a brief synopsis of each case. Inspector, we believe the death of Burke was not an accident, but, in fact, planned murder. The Chicago detective, Susan Daugherty, has reasons to reclassify the Clyburn mugging as murder-for-hire. May I ask where you are with the Keating matter?”

  “Well, to be truthful, the information you just provided has reinforced some things for us. It confirms the two things that lead us to believe Mr. Keating was deliberately targeted and his car crash was not an accident.”

  “Like what, if you don’t mind a little reciprocal sharing,” Lacey said.

  “At the point in the road where he lost control and the car began to slide, we found an elongated chip in the roadway. By itself, no big deal, but microscopic examination of the chip shows it contains grains of copper. That copper matches the atomic signature of the bullet fragment extracted from the left front tire casing of Keating’s automobile. In our opinion, that tire was shot out, causing the skid and his plunge off the roadway. In addition, the car’s roof was marked with yellow spray paint, so it was recognizable at a distance and from above the roadway. We have identified a spot on the hillside where the shot came from. Yes, sir, I believe this is a murder.”