by Brian Haig
First up was Paul Nussman, banged by a car as he bicycled through Manhattan. The collision was so violent that Nussman flew sixty feet before he was impaled on a fire hydrant. A hit-and-run, midday, yet no witnesses, no pictures. The killer was never found.
Bernard Kohlman fell off a ladder and broke his neck as he cleaned the gutter of his Greenwich home. He was sixty-two, a severe acrophobe, arthritic, overweight, lazy, with no history as a handyman. His wife told the police she didn’t even know they owned a ladder.
And Phillip Grossman committed suicide; his body was discovered hanging from the balcony in a gay movie theater. He was a closet homosexual, and though his secret was well-known, he went to great lengths to conceal his lifestyle. A public death in such an incriminating manner and place seemed spectacularly out of character.
Apparently those were not healthy years to be a senior executive or a board member at Primo.
The first living survivor of the firm Morgan decided to track down was Marigold Anders, executive assistant to Terrence Kyle II, the now deceased CEO. Assistants were always a fount of inside dirt; they tended to be gabby, too.
Anders, it turned out, lived on Long Island, in the quaint town of Montauk, as far east as you could travel before you dropped into the ocean. He called and identified himself as a federal officer performing a routine background check on Jack. The standard spiel.
Marigold said yes, of course she remembered Jack. When he invited himself out for an interview that afternoon, she said she had nothing better to do, then hung up. He took that as permission to drop by.
After a long, traffic-choked drive on the LIE, Morgan rolled into her dirt driveway at five in the evening. Marigold lived outside the town in a small clapboard house surrounded by flat potato fields and the occasional picturesque winery. It seemed as far from New York City as she could get, physically and spiritually.
He spent a moment taking in the house as he parked. The outside screamed for a thorough painting, there were missing shingles on the roof, the yard was wildly unkempt, and the car in the driveway was a model so old he didn’t recognize it. With a cracked windshield, missing hubcaps, a patchwork of oxidized paint, the heap should’ve been junked ten years ago. After ringing the bell twice—he doubted it worked—he wound his way around the house to the back.
He found Marigold there, hunched over in a rusted green lounge chair, puffing a cigarette and staring into the distance.
He introduced himself and produced the shiny badge O’Neal had issued him.
“Have a seat,” she said, casually pointing at another rusted wreck about five feet away from her chair.
He eased carefully into the chair—one of the four legs was barely holding on by a thin strip of rusted metal—and studied her a moment. Probably a looker in her day, but age and wrinkles of bitterness had taken a steep toll. Late sixties, he guessed, with the leathery skin and deep rasp of a lifelong smoker. It was a cold late December evening, and she wore a ratty blue overcoat that, like her, was well past its prime.
He yanked out a notebook and assumed a professional demeanor. “You said you used to work with Jack Wiley. Mind if I ask a few questions?”
“You the one who called this morning?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You drove all the way out here, didn’t you?”
Oh, great, Morgan thought. Getting anything out of this sour old prune was going to be worse than a Sunday afternoon with his wife’s church group. But he’d made the long drive and was determined to come back with something.
“How well did you know Jack?” he asked.
“Not very. I was the CEO’s executive assistant. He was just a lowly associate.”
Morgan pretended to read from a list of questions in his notebook. “Did you have a good impression of him?”
“Sure, he was cute.” She waved her cigarette in the air and cackled. “Nice ass, too.”
“Do you believe him to be trustworthy, to possess good qualities and character?”
“Well, I wouldn’t know about that, would I?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Wasn’t like I did any work with him. I was a glorified secretary, for godsakes.”
He made a brief entry in his notebook before he launched another official-sounding question. “How long did your time at Primo overlap?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Marigold sucked a deep cloud of smoke into her lungs as she thought about that a moment. “Two… no, I think, more like three years.”
Morgan decided to edge gently into this. “Did you ever know Jack to get into any trouble with the authorities?”
“You mean cops?”
“Them, or any other legal authorities.”
“If he did, I sure as hell didn’t know about it.”
“Did Jack have any problems at the firm? You worked for the CEO. Anything that came to his attention?”
Marigold frowned at him. “That sort of stuff was always treated real confidential. You know, kept behind closed doors.”
“But did you ever hear about anything? A stray comment from your boss? Watercooler rumor, that sort of thing?”
“Why? He in trouble or something?”
“Not at all, no. Just a background check.” Morgan worked up his most reassuring grin. The old hag was a nosy pain in the ass. “Sorry if I’m wasting your time, ma’am. I’m required to ask these questions.”
“Well, I don’t know nothin’ about any of that.”
“The name Edith Warbinger mean anything to you?”
“Nope. Should it?”
“Jack handled her investments back then. A large account, a mountain of money.”
“I told you, I never heard of her.”
“Okay, you’re doing fine. Can you tell me what happened to your boss?”
“Why?”
“We’re trying to track him down. Can’t seem to locate him anywhere.”
“Are you Feds always this incompetent?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, ain’t like he moved anywhere in a decade,” she said with a dismissive smile. “Check Flushing Cemetery.”
“He’s dead?”
“No, he bought a condo there. ’Course he’s dead, you idiot. Bastard bought it back in ’98.” There was a slight slur to her diction. Morgan was sure she’d been drinking.
“No kidding,” Morgan said, acting surprised. “Heart attack, stroke, what?”
“Plane crash. Too bad, too.”
“Yes, it’s always sad. So young, such a promising life cut short.”
“No, you fool, I was always hoping he’d die slow and agonizing. Maybe catch some exotic disease, some particularly nasty, lingering kind of cancer. Guess he got lucky.”
“You didn’t like him?”
“He was a lousy, rotten crook. Real bastard to work for.” She crushed out a butt on the ground and immediately fired up another.
Morgan pretended to make another small notation in his notebook, casually mentioning, “I’m surprised we missed it. A plane wreck, huh?”
“Yeah, him and that so-called CFO. Another real creep. They got stir-fried together against a mountainside.”
“Accident?”
“Why? You thinkin’ I did it?” She stopped and cackled, then it quickly developed into a nasty smoker’s hack.
He waited till the wracking noise stopped, then said, “Just, you know, it’s a little weird. We’ve tried to track down several of Primo’s board members from those years. Three of them—Nussman, Kohlman, Grossman—they’re all dead.”
“Are they?”
“Very.”
“Too bad.” Didn’t sound that way, though.
“Unhealthy place to work, huh?”
“Are you through?” she asked, stirring in her chair.
So far he had nothing. She was wearing her affection for Jack on her sleeve. Nothing interesting was going to come from the old hag unless he played it a little smarter. He gave her a hard, menacing stare as if he alread
y knew the truth. “Thing is, a few sources told us there were serious tensions between Jack and your boss.”
“What sources?”
“I’m afraid I can’t divulge that.”
“You need to talk to better people, bud. As I remember, Jack was too canny to get caught in Kyle’s crosshairs. Real smart boy, that one.” She stood and brushed a few ashes off her coat.
“Then maybe you can help me here. Do you remember any of Jack’s close friends in the firm?”
A quick shrug. “He was an associate, I was the boss’s assistant. Wasn’t like we went out for drinks every night. I was too old for him anyways.” She finished off her cigarette and lazily tossed it into a clump of wild bushes.
“Please, this could be helpful. A few people dumped on Jack. Personally, I like him. I’d just like to balance the ledger a bit.”
Marigold thought about it a moment. She obviously didn’t trust him, but wanted to do Jack as much good as she could. “This is all I’ll tell ya. Talk to his assistant.”
“You have a name?”
“Yeah. Su Young… something. Chinese, maybe Korean.”
“How about an address?”
By now she had her back turned and was walking back to the house. “Lazy government bastards,” she remarked over her shoulder. “Go find her yourself.”
18
The Pentagon office of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service was located in room 5E322, on the fifth floor, almost midway on the outermost ring, indisputably the least desirable location in a building known for its lack of pleasant accommodations. The fortified doors hid a windowless warren of cubicles, in essence a large walk-in safe due to the sensitive nature of the work done inside these walls.
The room was designed for no more than twenty. Currently, forty investigators and assistants were crammed and pigeonholed into the space, at risk of suffocation.
Nicholas Garner, chief of the financial crimes division, cursed as he banged a shin on a stray chair, and fought and squeezed his way through the terrible sprawl of office furniture. He finally reached the seventh cubicle on the left, where he dropped an armful of papers on the desk. “I need you to plow through this.”
“When?”
“Today, Mia.”
Mia pushed away what she was doing and looked up. “What is it?”
“Mendelson Refineries.”
“Is this a quiz?”
“Midsize refining outfit. Located in Louisiana. Place called Garyville.”
“Is there some particular suspicion I’m supposed to hunt down?”
“You tell me.”
She picked up the thick stack of papers and began riffling through the pages. It was a chaotic mess—financial spreadsheets, billings, invoices, payment slips. Nicky had apparently ordered one of the overworked assistants to make a mad dash through the procurement directorate and dredge up every piece of paper dealing with Mendelson Refineries. It would take hours to go through it all. Then many more hours to separate the wheat from the chaff in a frenzied hunt for real evidence, if indeed any existed inside this mass of garbage. “Another inside tip?” she asked, sounding annoyed.
A quick nod. “Hotline, again. Male voice, anonymous, the usual. He swore up and down Mendelson’s cheating us blind.”
Mia sipped a Diet Coke and rolled her eyes.
Garner offered a stiff, apologetic smile. “I know, and I’m sorry. We did get a trace this time.”
“And where did it originate?”
“Pay phone outside Garyville. Maybe another prank, might be real. Standard rule applies—you don’t check, you don’t know.”
The hotline was a great idea that was rapidly souring into a dispiriting disaster. Sources were supposed to call the hotline number to report abuse or financial shenanigans, and this would trigger an investigation. The ratline, it was called. All tips were confidential and this was the beauty of it. No names, just blame.
The past few months, however, the hotline had been inundated with a suspiciously large number of reports of abuse or thievery. The callers were nearly all anonymous. All the calls had to be painstakingly looked into; very few panned out.
The heads of the DCIS now suspected that the industries that did business with the military were adding a new wrinkle to their never-ending ways to screw the government—send the investigators chasing after a flood of false leads and empty claims, and they would become too busy to watch and catch the real crooks. It seemed to be working, unfortunately. The room was full of bloodshot eyes. Sick days were shooting through the ceiling. Morale was sinking. Worse, since the calls picked up, overall convictions were down thirty percent.
Mia stared back in mock frustration. “Why me again, Nicky?”
Garner ignored the look and the comment. “The source claimed Mendelson’s undercutting deliveries by two percent. Last year, the Navy bought a hundred million in jet fuel from the company. All told, about two million in fraud.”
“Wonderful.” At thirty-one, Mia Jenson had four years of practicing law in the private sector, and now two hard years under her belt laboring in the trenches of the DCIS. It was a small agency with big responsibilities.
And by almost every measure, Mia Jenson was its most bizarre member.
A graduate of Dickinson College, early, compacting four years into three, then she attended Harvard Law, where she shot to the top of the class. Not number one, but an incredibly close number two, and had she not overloaded on securities courses, number one would’ve eaten her dust. She concentrated on corporate and contracts; two of her case studies made the law journal. She was associate editor of the law review her final year.
Beautiful, brilliant, fluent in two languages, she was courted and offered an associate job by twenty top firms. Almost all offered six figures with a dizzying array of perks.
She interviewed them. She spurned all offers to visit their firms; she insisted they come to her, peppered them with questions, and made it clear she was picky.
They didn’t mind, or at least they pretended not to. She was hot, she was in demand. They wanted her.
She turned down the top fourteen offers and settled eventually on a small, quirky boutique firm in D.C., at half the salary of her top offer, but the promise of a fast track to partnership. The money meant nothing to her, she insisted. The challenge and the nature of the work were all that mattered.
That firm, Wendly and Wexer, specialized in cutting-edge corporate legal issues. Mainly its clients were oil companies, big communications firms, sports stars, and entertainment—all areas where laws, regulations, and contracts were constantly shifting.
For four years, Mia worked the twenty-hour days demanded of eager young associates with dreams of an early partnership rattling around their heads. Eventually the firm billed her out at $450 per hour—amazingly, a rate equaling that billed by full partners in many top firms.
One of her victories forced the FCC to change a long-standing law after she discovered a loophole and drove a truck through it.
The early partnership was hinted at, and she had no reason to doubt it.
Then out of the blue, one day, she walked into the office of the managing partner and politely handed him her resignation. He was stunned—his most promising associate, such a bright future, a billing machine, and she wanted to walk away.
Worse, she was a woman in a firm that was painfully overdue for a partner who wore lipstick. Also, like nearly every male in the firm, he secretly nursed a big crush on her.
He begged her to reconsider. She wouldn’t, she said, with an expression that indicated she meant it. Did you get a better offer, he asked; come on, give us a chance to match it. Nope, not that, but she offered no other reason. Better partners to work with? A firm shake of the head; they’ve all been wonderful, absolutely great. A bigger office, better perks, nicer view, shorter hours? How about a one-year sabbatical to unwind and enjoy life?
No, no, no, to all of the above.
One week later, Mia entered nineteen week
s of rigorous training at the Basic Agent Course held at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. Then ten weeks bouncing around various Army bases where she mastered the byzantine world of the military procurement and contracting system.
A federal law enforcement agency, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service works under the Department of Defense’s inspector general. The IG is the Pentagon watchdog, and DCIS is the IG’s hammer, filled with boys and girls who carry real guns and nice gold shields. They investigate waste, fraud, terrorism, and theft, and they execute real warrants and make real arrests.
Based presumably on her background, Mia made a strong plea to be assigned to the financial crimes unit in the Pentagon, and that request landed on the desk of Nicky Garner. His office was ridiculously understaffed and scandalously overworked. With two wars raging and a defense budget ballooning out of sight, corporate graft was a huge growth business. It was as if a big sign hung outside the Pentagon—“Here’s the jackpot, boys, come and grab it.” A tenfold increase in investigators wouldn’t have a prayer of keeping up. Almost any warm body would do.
Still, Nicky didn’t know what to make of her.
For one thing, she was absurdly overqualified for a starter agent. Besides, how could anybody trade the fat paychecks and enviable perks of corporate law for a lowly starting government salary of $36,000? The best anybody could recall, no Harvard Law grad had ever worked as a special agent. Not one, ever.
Was she an eccentric, a power freak, or just plain nuts?
Nicky decided to initiate her in charge card fraud. It was menial, low-level work, busting small-time hustlers and crooks; it was also a perfect excuse to keep her under close scrutiny for a while. See if she had a screw loose, or scary aggression issues, or ran naked through the halls—it had all happened before.
When, after only three months, she surpassed the office record for arrests leading to prosecutions, Nicky changed his mind. She seemed perfectly normal, whatever the hell that meant these days. She was efficient, hardworking, and with her impressive background in law, a magician at building airtight cases. Nicky piled the work on her. She was already handling triple the caseload of a typical DCIS grunt.
