by Mary Calmes
“No!” he informed Mr. Holtz, staring at one of the best trial lawyers in the city, as well as probably the most expensive. “I’m innocent, but I have a name for him, and I need to do this before I’m completely disowned by my brother.”
I couldn’t focus on the words; only Max was important. And I thought good things about him. He was a stand-up guy, and also, he looked good in a suit. The way whatever designer he was wearing fit—the jacket accentuating the breadth of his shoulders, the way the sleeves rose to reveal the silver monogrammed cufflinks, and the pale-blue shade against his golden skin—all of it was stunning. But he was not his brother, and so even dressed up, he was a poor substitute once you had seen the original.
I got why Max couldn’t really be the Sutter brand. Something was missing.
Max was so very pretty, but the smirk wasn’t there, the rakish tip of the head, the wicked gleam in the eyes made even more noticeable by deep laugh lines and dimples. Max’s hair fell forward into his face; Aaron’s only did that after he’d been tumbling around in bed for a while. Even sitting completely still, Aaron radiated a sort of crackling vitality Max simply didn’t have. Yes, they were brothers, but people wanted to be in business with the mover, with the shaker, with the man who kicked down doors and knew how to wheel and deal. Max was not the dealmaker; his big brother was.
“Me and Nick McCall and Lance Madison all went into business with Evan Polley.”
“You guys all went to school together?”
“Yeah. We did. First Exeter and then Yale.”
“And you all put money into Rabbit Run.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred and fifty grand each.”
Jesus. “And?”
“And nothing. Evan didn’t do anything to build the business. I mean, he talked a good game, and it seemed like he was wheeling and dealing, but nothing came of it. He signed no one, no records were produced, and when he finally got a break with a really promising singer, he found that between what he put up his nose and what he spent on partying, he had nothing left over to launch a career with.”
“Who was that?”
“Jenna Tate.”
I knew the song. Her song. The one about the man who had beat her and left her pregnant and alone. It was a good song about finding your own power and love and doing what was hard because it was right. It had become an anthem against domestic violence and about the joy of motherhood. But it was also about respect and the right guy, and so with all of that, the song and the video had gone platinum and viral.
“Who is she with now?”
“Capitol Records.”
“Good for her.”
“Yes.”
“So what did he do?”
“Like I said, absolutely nothing. He partied and made promises, and when Lance finally found his own calling in gay porn, Evan wanted nothing to do with it.”
“So Lance did what?”
“Lance got his money back from Evan and used it to start his own company, Fielding James.”
I had actually been on his site and seen Lance Madison’s idea of porn. It was one of the classiest ones I had ever come across. His webmaster was gifted, and the guys who worked for him were all toned and gorgeous ideals of male beauty. I wasn’t into rape fantasies or bondage or fetish gear, and his site had none of those ads or pop-ups. It was just straightforward categories of college-age guys fucking: no role playing, no bad acting, no fake scenery, scary outfits, or poorly engineered mood music. Every video showed two guys, sometimes three, a clean bed, laughing, touching, kissing, and lots of hot, sweaty sex. The man definitely knew what he was doing.
“And so?”
“So Lance started making serious money, but when Evan needed some, he refused to help him.”
It was understandable. “So Evan hits you up next.”
“No. He went to Nick.”
“Nick McCall.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
He shrugged. “Nick couldn’t make a go of his chain of sports bars, and once his entire trust fund was gone, he went to work for his father. They buy companies and then turn around and sell them off, either outright or in pieces.”
“What about the money Nick gave Evan?”
“He’s out that, just like I am.”
“And neither of you need it back?”
“It’s business,” he said frankly.
“Okay,” I sighed. “So after Evan gets nowhere with Nick, he comes and knocks on your door.”
“Yes.”
“And what did you say?”
He fell back in his chair. “I don’t have money that’s just mine, Detective. I mean, I have my trust fund, but it’s locked up until I’m thirty.”
“So how did you get the money to give Evan to begin with?”
“I borrowed against what’s mine.”
“From a bank?”
He shook his head. “No, from my brother.”
“Aaron gave you the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
“Sure.”
“And he didn’t care what you did with it?”
“No. Why would he?”
Rich people. It was beyond me. I leaned forward. “Okay. So walk me through this. Evan’s gone through his own money, yours, and Nick’s.”
“Yes.”
“Lance was smart enough to get his back before the ship sank.”
“Yes.”
“And then what?”
“Okay, so then Evan needs money because he borrowed some from people who weren’t his friends, and they want it back like now.”
“And who’s that?”
“I don’t know who he borrowed from.” He shook his head. “He wouldn’t tell me. But he was really scared.”
“Okay, then what?”
“Well, then he’s gone, and I was worried and thinking the worst, you know, but then he suddenly shows up.”
“Just like that.”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“And the last time I saw him, he told me he was in real trouble, but that he had met someone who was going to throw him a lifeline. He said this guy was saving his life.”
“Does this good Samaritan have a name?”
“Yeah. Clay Wells.”
I had been taking notes and made a line for the brand-new name. “And do you know him? Does he travel in your social circle?”
“Not in mine. His money’s too new. But he has a place in the Hamptons, and Evan took me there with him for the weekend.”
“Drugs?”
“Drugs were just the tip of the iceberg. That weekend was insane. I mean, whatever debauchery you can think up, Detective, it was there. You could have it.”
“Okay.”
“And then Sunday night, he flew us to Vegas on his private jet, and we were there as his guests for a week.”
“Okay. So while you were with Evan and this guy Clay, did you see any drugs change hands?”
“No. But Evan made a big production of saying that he had an even smaller plane than Clay’s that belonged to his father’s business but was his to use whenever he wanted.”
“And so since you’re not stupid, you got that he was offering to transport drugs.”
“Yes.”
I made some more notes. “So Evan started doing this that weekend?”
“Pretty sure.”
“And this was when?”
“About a year ago.”
“Did you hang out with him after that?”
“No, not really. As you know, my father and my brother were waging a war for the business. The first part of it is settled, but my dad wants Prentiss––he’s another of my dad’s sons––to take over Sutter now that the board has informed him that they unequivocally will not reinstate him.”
“But Aaron makes the board and the investors’ money,” I couldn’t help but remark. “There’s no way they hand over the reins to someone brand-new.”
“That
’s true, but a protracted legal battle would still be wearing on everyone.”
“Sure,” I agreed, because it was easy. “So you’ve been with your brother, which means that Evan Polley’s drama was sort of lost on you.”
“Yes.”
“But your belief is what?”
“I think Clay Wells murdered Evan because he either didn’t want to move the drugs anymore, or he thought he had done enough for Clay to be paid off. I’m not sure. I don’t know how much of Evan’s debt Clay took care of, but I do know that the drugs themselves were what killed him.” His eyes locked on mine. “They were, weren’t they?”
“Yes, they were,” I told him because Ellie had confirmed it for me the first day. “Evan Polley was shot post mortem. He was killed by an overdose of uncut cocaine in his system.”
“I figured it was something like that.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
I closed the file. “I think we’re good, unless you have something else to tell me.”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded.
“All right. Thank you so much for coming in.”
“I don’t feel like I’ve done anything.”
“You gave me a name to run down, and you gave me the how with the plane. You’ve been a great help.”
His eyes searched mine. “He’s so angry with me.”
I was not about to get into anything else with him. “Mr. Sutter—”
“I thought he’d appreciate what I tried to do, but he didn’t, and now he’s just so mad.”
“That’s all the time we—”
“Please could you go out to his house and talk to—”
“I can’t,” I shut him down. “I have no time at all.”
Funny that he almost seemed hurt, but I went into hyper-efficient mode and got up, walked out the door, and barked for Cohen and Benoit.
Max came out of the room and started down the hall after me, but there was suddenly a swarm of uniforms behind him and a heavy jacket was thrown over his head before he could even react.
“What the hell is—”
“We have you, Mr. Sutter!”
He was grabbed by two officers and rushed down the corridor in a crowd of patrolmen, lost to the eye, which was the whole point. He was carried along by the sea of men toward the back stairs that led to the transport bay. Mr. Holtz shook my hand, thanking me for keeping him out of sight.
An hour later, after I was done adding information to the file as well as to the board that Jimmy, Cohen, Benoit, and I worked off of, I put both my minions on tracking down the plane and ran a record search on Clay Wells. My phone rang when I was waiting for information to pop up on my screen. “Stiel,” I answered on the second ring.
“Tell me why you’re doing a record search on Mr. Wells, Detective.”
“I’m sorry, who is this?”
“This is Special Agent Carlene Summers with the FBI, Detective Stiel, and I need to know why you are looking into Clay Wells.”
“We—”
“Now.”
I cleared my throat. “We believe he either killed or had killed a drug mule of his on Saturday night.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I think you need to come see me, Detective. Do you know where the field office is?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” I groaned.
“Oh, look here. Four months ago, you were with us on the Delgado task force in New York.”
I grunted.
“Well now, Detective, have you ever considered a career with the Bureau?”
I made a noise in the back of my throat. “When do you want me there?”
“Now, Detective. Right now.”
Shit.
Chapter 8
MY CAPTAIN went with Jimmy and me to the Federal building to have a long talk with Special Agent Carlene Summers. She knew all about Clay Wells. She even let us listen to the chatter on the line of where he ordered one of his guys to go to Posh and deal with Evan Polley, who was freaking out because he felt strange. The next phone call was the guy calling Mr. Wells back.
“Due to unforeseen circumstances, a nonscheduled package has burst. Please advise.”
“Repeat.”
“A package that did not appear on the manifest has burst, sir, please advise.”
“An extra?” Wells sounded surprised.
“Affirmative.”
“Our cargo was not affected.”
“No, sir, our packages are in transit.”
“But the other has burst.”
“It has. We await instruction.”
He cleared his throat. “Alter delivery confirmation to suspend tracking.”
“Affirmative.”
I looked at Agent Summers. “That’s Wells’s guy shooting Evan Polley in the head.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“So then what we thought was wrong. Polley wasn’t a mule.”
“No,” she shook her head. “He was a mule, just not the kind that normally shoved uncut cocaine up his own ass. He used a plane to move drugs for Clay Wells.”
“But he got greedy and tried to make a little extra on the side.”
“Yes.”
“So you think what? Evan Polley died of a cocaine overdose?”
She sighed deeply. “No guess, Detective. We know from that brilliant recording you just heard, and I’m sure that your coroner already confirmed cause of death, did she not?”
“She did.”
“And?”
“And, like you said, he OD’d and then got shot in the head to cover it up.”
Her eyes never left mine. “Let’s stop the second-guessing, Detective. You can safely assume that I know everything you do.”
“But that’s not quite true is it?”
“In what way?”
“Well, you guys didn’t find Polley.”
“We had no idea there was even a connection between Wells and Polley before two days ago. Obviously, we knew someone was dead, we just didn’t know who.”
Which made sense. “And of course, even Wells giving those vague orders on your wiretap doesn’t give you anything to arrest him on.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
I absorbed what she’d said and then made the next logical jump. “So are you sending someone in undercover to try and take Polley’s place?”
“We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“The timeline is too tight.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Mr. Wells lost a courier this week, and he needs a new one.”
“Right.”
“Well, he can’t wait, and we don’t have time to build a backstory and create a whole fictional identity in the time we have.”
“Do you know what’s going to happen?”
“Yes. Mr. Wells will fly to Las Vegas tomorrow night, and from the high rollers at the parties he attends, he’ll pick out some candidates to go into business with.”
“Then what?”
“And then he’ll invite them back to the resort he owns in Sedona.”
“Why can’t you just put in surveillance at that resort? Catch him making a deal to move his product?”
“Because entry to the resort is by invitation only,” she reiterated.
“No, I’m not talking about some rich guy he’s looking to go into business with. I’m talking about a contractor or––”
“Wells has a private company that takes care of all the maintenance and security at the resort, and everyone who works there lives on site.”
“What?”
“He’s covered all his bases, Detective, there’s no way to move people off and on the property.”
“Okay, so you’re saying really the only way in is by partying with Wells in Vegas and getting an invite.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“So you plant someone in Wells’ path. What’s so hard?”
“Lik
e I said before.” She was terse. “We don’t have time. He’s going back to Vegas this weekend already.”
“But you could put––”
“He handpicks from the wealthiest, most powerful men, Detective, and everyone knows who those people are and what they look like.”
I had to think. “So tell me about it.”
“It?”
“The resort.”
“We don’t really know. Supposedly, it’s Xanadu. It’s Sodom and Gomorrah. It’s whatever exotic, depraved wet dream you can think of. Apparently, the security and everything else is top of the line. They have military grade signal scramblers, and no electronics of any kind are permitted on the grounds. Everything remains at the gate.”
It sounded like Wells had thought of everything.
“From what little we’ve been able to find out, they have facial recognition software on site and trap and trace on every incoming and outgoing phone line.”
“Jesus,” Jimmy muttered under his breath.
“No cameras, no phones… nothing.”
“So you can’t reach your people once they’re inside.”
“Exactly.”
“And from what you’re telling me, you have no play.”
“Exactly. We would need to get someone invited in. Then he, or she, can insinuate themselves into Wells’s group, and we can see if he asks that person to either take over the drug business or help bankroll it.”
“It sounds like you have a golden opportunity right now to get someone in there.”
“In theory, yes. But the problem is that you can’t just create rich people out of thin air. Fabricating a background, planting media stories, and inserting fake information, all of that takes time, and really, with his resources, there’s no way of knowing how easy it would be for him to discover the ruse.”
I had a terrible idea. “What if we could get one of Evan’s friends to go in undercover? That would make sense, right? I mean, they would have seen Evan getting paid, and Mr. Wells would have seen all of them.”
“Yes. That would be brilliant, but you can’t just ask a civilian to step into a dangerous situation. It’s not something we do.”
“It is,” I contradicted her. “I know that it might not be standard operating procedure, but you do make rare allowances for one-offs if there’s no other choice.”
“Yes. We would make an allowance if there was an undercover detective present to protect them.”
