Everyone waited for him to say more. Finally, Maria spoke up. “For goodness sake, Crawford, tell us about the stones!”
He looked around, found the glass of wine he hadn’t touched since he’d started the examination, took a sip, then a gulp. “All right, then. What you’re looking at here is a bloody fortune in very rare, naturally colored ‘fancy’ diamonds. I’d need a spectrophotometer to be absolutely sure,” he said, “but the quality of color and the unevenness of the color in each tells me that these weren’t irradiated in a nuclear reactor or heated to produce pigmentation. Again, I can’t be absolutely certain in the absence of better equipment and gem lab lighting, but I’ve seen some diamonds in my day, and I think I know what I’m looking at. You can see for yourselves that they are unusually large stones, but unless I miss my call, they’re also of a quality that you generally find only in museums, or in the private collections of diamond merchants or the very rich. The only defects in them I can detect are the ones that give them the pretty colors. In other words, finding them in a closet in Laramie is unlikely,” he finished, with typical Green understatement.
“Can you say anything about where they might have come from?” Hawk asked.
“I can talk about probability rather than certainty, Jody,” Crawford told him. “Now, it’s possible that the yellows and blues came from India, where nearly all the diamonds in the world came from before the late-nineteenth century. But it’s a good deal more likely that the yellows came from the Cape Province of South Africa, which produced most of the stones of this canary color, between the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The blues might have come from Minas Gerais in Brazil, but they’re large enough that I’d wager they came from one South African mine in particular, the Premier, which began operating in 1902.”
“So they all could have been mined and cut before World War Two,” Sally observed.
Crawford nodded. “Likely they were.” Then he picked up the pink teardrop. “All but this one, probably. This looks to me like stones I saw when I did some work in Australia. They go for about a hundred grand a carat. They came from the Argyle mine, which has produced most of the pink diamonds in the world today. The Argyle started producing in the late 1970s. So this lovely thing, which is probably worth a million bucks now, is the anomaly,” he said, putting the glittering rosy stone back on the pad at a slight distance from the other gems.
“What do you mean?” Sally asked.
Crawford considered. “First of all, it couldn’t have been acquired before, say, 1978. The others might have been purchased much earlier. But also, these”—he gestured toward the velvet pad—“are magnificent specimens of a particular type and range of color. They look like a collection to me.”
“So maybe Meg collected diamonds,” Sally said.
“Maybe. But to get your hands on these, you’d have to be right on top of the market. Most gems like these get snapped up by the big diamond merchants themselves.”
Sally and Hawk looked at each other. “Meg Dunwoodie had a lover who was a German diamond merchant,” she told Crawford.
Hawk’s father frowned. “A diamond merchant who stayed in Germany during World War Two?”
“Evidently so,” said Hawk. “We’ve wondered about that.”
Crawford took a deep breath. “You do know, don’t you, that most diamond merchants in the western hemisphere have been Jews.” Everyone nodded, holding their breath. “Of course, some of them were great collectors. According to the stories I’ve heard, the Nazis stole a number of the world’s greatest diamond collections when they murdered the owners in the camps. Nobody knows how many of these kinds of things are still sitting in vaults in Swiss banks. These”—he pointed at the dazzling yellow and blue stones—“might very well have been one of those collections.”
“Maybe it belonged to the Blums. Maybe Meg smuggled out their diamonds, along with their child.” Maria’s eyes widened, and Sally said, “I’ll tell you about that later.”
Hawk walked over, picked up the pink diamond, held it up and let it catch the light. “What about this one?”
“I can’t tell you anything about how that one might have gotten here,” Crawford said. “When was it you first got to Laramie, Jody? Nineteen seventy-nine? It probably didn’t get here before you did.”
Chapter 31
Freedom Ranch
For the first time, Bobby was really starting to feel that circumstances might have moved beyond his control. He’d just gotten off the phone with Elroy’s chief accountant, who indicated that he had some serious questions about the client’s tax returns from the early ’90s. It turned out that the guy had only just started working for Foote, and he’d simply plugged in the numbers Foote had given him from previous years. Foote’s losses, deductions, and allowances had somehow always outpaced his income, even though he was one rich son of a bitch. Nobody had ever bothered to wonder why he never seemed to make any money until the IRS started sniffing around.
Bobby knew that he personally would not remain wealthy if he didn’t make money, but he had always figured that the very rich were not like you and me. Now, however, the auditors were asking where all of Elroy’s money was going, and rumors of his tax troubles had reached Wall Street. Stocks in Elroy’s public holdings had taken a beating, and Elroy was not happy about it. Bobby himself was uneasy with the thought that he had to call Elroy up and ask him some intimate questions. Elroy would insist that Bobby come up to Freedom Ranch for their conversation , instead of talking on the phone, but Bobby had decided that he absolutely wasn’t going up there this weekend. The Unknown Soldiers were due to hold their Memorial Day muster, gathering at Foote’s ranch before taking off for maneuvers in the Absaroka Range, and Bobby was trying to put a little distance between himself and Elroy’s mad militia.
Elroy answered the telephone in a jolly mood. His older daughter and her two children were spending the holiday weekend with him, and he was a doting grandpa. He asked how the lawsuit was going, and Bobby told him it might go to trial by fall. Eventually, Elroy got around to asking Bobby whether he’d handled the tax situation yet, and Bobby had to say, “Well, no, not exactly.”
“I don’t understand,” Foote said coldly. “Why am I paying you so much if you can’t solve problems for me?”
“Believe me,” Bobby told him, “I’d love to solve this problem for you, but I need a little more information.”
“What kind of information?”
“Well, like why your tax returns from 1990 show all kinds of holdings making all kinds of profits, and then by 1996 you were losing money hand over fist. The auditors don’t understand how your net worth went into the toilet precisely at the time the economy started getting well. They think you’re hiding something.”
Elroy began to fulminate about government interference with private property, but Bobby interrupted him. “I’m your attorney, Mr. Foote,” he said. “You need to confide in me. Anything you tell me is privileged information, of course.”
Elroy seemed to consider the matter. Bobby could hear the theme from Barney in the background. Elroy’s grandchildren evidently watched a lot of TV. “OK, Helwigsen,” he said. “Can’t we have this conversation in person?”
Bobby said it was impossible. He and the accountants would be working the whole weekend, trying to figure out a way to deal with the IRS.
“All right. Call me back at this number in twenty minutes. Don’t use your cellphone.” Elroy gave him a number Bobby had never used, then hung up. Bobby picked up his mail, got himself a cup of coffee, closed the door to his office, read his mail, and dialed the number. Elroy answered, sounding echoey and far away. Bobby asked where he was, but Elroy cut him off, talking fast.
“I’m at a secure place, speaking on a secure line. That’s all you need to know. Last year, I learned that the lawyer and the accountant who were handling my affairs had bungled my finances. Too much of the profit from companies in which I held a majority interest was being distributed to sto
ckholders as dividends. I was being deprived of what was rightfully mine,” he said with disgust.
Bobby took a sip of coffee. “Well, Elroy, it’s pretty common for stockholders to get dividends when they invest their money in a company,” he observed.
Elroy didn’t like that observation at all. “It may be common, Bobby, but it is far from universal, and I saw it as a way to cheat me out of millions of dollars. Why, my own lawyer and accountant were collecting some of those dividends themselves, and they didn’t even see it as a conflict of interest! And to make matters worse, I was paying taxes on far too much of the money I made through the sweat of my brow.”
Bobby tried to think whether he had ever seen Elroy do anything more arduous than get into a pickup truck.
“Naturally I was distressed,” Elroy continued, “so I decided to take matters into my own hands. I had the lawyer and the accountant set up companies chartered in countries that truly welcome free enterprise, unlike our own, and moved most of my capital out of the publicly traded corporations and out of the United States. Of course, neither the government nor the investment community has caught on to this, and I expect you to see that they remain innocent of my affairs.”
Bobby experienced the sudden insight that Elroy was not nearly as dumb as he seemed, but was surely as crazy. “I’ll see what I can do,” he tried lamely, and then couldn’t help asking, “What happened to that attorney?”
“Poor Walt Flanders. It was terribly unfortunate,” said Elroy, sounding not a bit sad. “He and Danny went out one afternoon looking for antelope, and he shot himself with his own gun.”
“And the accountant?” Bobby gulped, in something of a trance.
“Another bit of bad luck. Mickey was leaving here after a meeting and his brakes failed in Togwotee Pass.”
“Oh,” murmured Bobby. “Yes,” Elroy intoned piously. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
Bobby didn’t know about the Lord, but he understood a lot more now about how Elroy Foote worked. “I guess I’d better get cracking,” he finished.
“See that you do,” Elroy told him. Elroy pressed the disconnect on the speakerphone in the secret bunker he’d had built not far from the ranch house, buried beneath an abandoned barn. Danny Crease sat across from him, cleaning a handgun. “What do you think?” Elroy asked him.
“He’s weak. I’d say he’s about half a step from going off the reservation,” Danny replied, looking up from his task with slitted eyes.
“I’ve been a patient man, but I’m growing tired of his impertinence and incompetence. I should have known never to trust a lawyer. Take care of him,” said Elroy. “Take the plane.” And meanwhile, Elroy thought to himself, it was time to go to Code Red.
Bobby spent two hours debating his prospects with himself. He could continue to do everything possible to protect Elroy Foote, a course of action dictated by the strong possibility that if he didn’t, Elroy would have him killed. He could go to the bank, withdraw all his money, call his stockbroker , cash in all his investments, buy a plane ticket to Tonga and change his name to Vince. Or he could go to the police, cop a plea on his own relatively minor crimes (giving false information about Shane Parker being probably the worst) and try to stick Elroy Foote where the sun would never again shine on his evil carcass. None of his choices looked too desirable.
In the end, he got in his BMW and drove to the Department of Criminal Investigation. He didn’t notice the rental car that had just pulled into his office parking lot as he got into his car, which didn’t park but instead followed him to the cop shop. Two officers stood out in front inspecting a crack in the windshield of their car as he pulled up, parked, took a deep breath and got out. The cops said hi, and Bobby returned the greeting. He walked inside. The rental car pulled away.
Officers P.W. Corkett and Curtis Kates were sitting at their desks, working their way down stacks of paper. Corkett appeared surprised to see Bobby. “Officer Corkett,” Bobby began, “I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely candid with you.”
“I’m disappointed to hear that, Mr. Helwigsen,” Corkett replied, though he was far from it. He had known for a while, from Dickie Langham, that something was going on up at Freedom Ranch, but he hadn’t had a spare minute to look into the matter. “It’s never too late to turn over a new leaf. Have a seat.” He indicated a chair next to his desk. Kates came over and leaned on the desk, folding his arms. “Where shall we begin?” Corkett asked.
“Uh, I’d like counsel present,” said Bobby, realizing that he must be in trouble, because he needed a lawyer.
Danny Crease knew a lot of cuss words, and he used them all. He’d been a minute too late to grab Helwigsen in the parking lot, and the only place he’d had a clear shot at him had been in front of the police station. He wasn’t about to kill even a scumbag lawyer with police officers as witnesses. But his self-restraint was slipping. If he didn’t watch himself, he’d lose it.
Things, he knew, were about to go wrong in a big way. Danny had worked for Elroy Foote on and off since 1990, and he’d never let one get away before. Both he and Foote had gotten sloppy. Helwigsen knew way too much. Foote would expect him to report soon, and Danny knew Elroy would blame him for failing. He saw no reason to go back to Freedom Ranch. Elroy would be furious, and there was no question that the place would soon be swarming with cops. So Danny drove to the Greyhound station, left the car in the parking lot, and bought a ticket on the first bus out of town. Much as he’d hoped to build a new world starting with Elroy Foote’s money and power, it was time to get the hell out of Wyoming. Boarding the express bus to Denver, he reflected that he would have to return soon for one brief encore. His last act in the state would be finishing his personal business with Dickie Langham.
PeeWee Corkett turned off the tape recorder and lit a cigarette. Bobby Helwigsen asked if he could go to the bathroom. Kates took him, while PeeWee listened to Helwigsen’s lawyer trying to argue that they shouldn’t press charges against his client for giving false information to an officer investigating a felony. PeeWee didn’t intend to bargain away that chip until he felt sure that he had Helwigsen’s full cooperation on all matters having to do with Shane Parker or Elroy Foote or the Unknown Soldiers. PeeWee was just beginning to get a picture of how many charges they could hang on Elroy Foote and his paramilitary gang.
He called his commander and gave him a summary of what they’d learned from Helwigsen. “We’re going to need to call in some help on this. According to the lawyer, there’s enough firepower at Freedom Ranch to take over a small country. Foote has helicopters, jeep-mounted rocket launchers. He’s even got a tank.”
“I know,” said the commander. “The FBI and the ATF got wind of some illegal arms purchases a couple of years ago, and they’ve been keeping an eye on him ever since. I didn’t know anything about it until that shooting in Muddy Gap, when I got a call from the FBI agent here in Casper asking if we’d back off our investigation. They’ve had a guy inside, and they were worried he’d be compromised.”
PeeWee fumed. “Leave it to the feds. What the hell do they think they’re doing, screwing up my case?”
“Catching a bigger fish,” said the commander. “And as of this morning, it looks like something’s happening. Their undercover guy reported in this morning. Said the militia was gathering for a routine Memorial Day exercise, when all of a sudden Foote announced that they were on combat status and ordered a lockdown of the place. He and his family have gone into some kind of bunker near the ranch house, with the militiamen setting up defensive positions nearby. SWAT teams are on the way.”
“How many of them are in there?” Corkett asked.
“Besides your lawyer friend, apparently only one of the militiamen isn’t accounted for, a guy named Danny Crease. Did time in Colorado for assault with a deadly, one manslaughter charge in Boulder County, dropped, a couple of narcotics charges but no convictions. Very notnice person, and we aren’t sure where he’s gone. As for who’s still in there, maybe
a dozen militia types, a handful of cowboys, the undercover FBI guy. And Foote and his wife, daughter, and grandkids.”
“Jesus,” said PeeWee. “Welcome to Ruby Ridge.”
“Tequila, mon amour,” Dickie Langham groaned to PeeWee Corkett. “Thank Christ it’s not my jurisdiction.” There was no way they could keep a lid on this. The FBI, the ATF, the Teton County Sheriff’s Office, and the DCI were sending officers to Foote’s place. Within hours, television crews would be flying into Jackson and Cody, showing up in helicopters, renting every available vehicle, and heading up to cover the Siege of Freedom Ranch. By morning, half of Wyoming’s sterling politicians would probably be denouncing the federal government at whose trough they so greedily fed, and declaring Elroy Foote a martyr to states’ rights. Dickie hoped there wouldn’t be violence. If anything happened to anyone on the ranch, the political posturing would be unbearable.
“Just thought I ought to keep you up to date. Oh yeah, one of the maniacs has gone missing. I’m faxing you the rap sheet on him. Keep a lookout.”
“Sure,” said Dickie. “Just like we did before, with such great success.”
“Don’t beat yourself up about that, Dickie. It’s not your fault Shane Parker got loose, shot someone and ended up dead,” PeeWee soothed.
“Presumed dead,” Dickie retorted. “We’re still waiting for the forensics. There wasn’t all that much left to test.”
“If it matters,” said PeeWee. “Take some deep breaths. Go get a milkshake. Go make love to your wife. Forget about the tequila,” PeeWee advised. He’d also been rather too closely acquainted with Jose Cuervo at one time, though he wouldn’t join AA because he hated meetings of any kind. “That fax oughta come through in a minute. Let us know if you run across this guy.”
“Right. Thanks, PeeWee,” Dickie signed off. The fax machine was beeping. He waited for the transmission to be complete, watched the sheets of paper move through and drop into the tray. And froze as he looked down at the mug shot and criminal record of a man he had hoped never to encounter again. Danny Crease was in Wyoming, was somehow in the middle of as big a mess as Dickie had seen in his law enforcement career, a mess that had reached out and oozed right up on his own daughter and one of his oldest friends. For all Dickie knew, Danny Crease was on his way back to Laramie to collect the debt Dickie owed him, from so long ago. Dickie bet he was the kind who held grudges.
Brown-Eyed Girl Page 31
