by Jeff Siebold
“We’re trying to find Jenny’s killer,” said Zeke. “You have any thoughts about that?”
“You mean about who killed her? I don’t know. Could have been the guy at the bar she was talking to. Or it could have been someone she ran into after she left the bar.”
“She left the bar when?” asked Zeke.
Bearcat looked away and rubbed his eye. “I think she left when Sandy called the cops. She went out the back.”
“Alone?” asked Zeke.
“Alone and drunk,” said Bearcat.
“You stayed around?”
“I was going to leave before the cops got there, too. They can’t arrest you if you’re not there,” Bearcat said as if he was sharing a street savvy secret. “But I fell asleep on the table.”
“Uh-huh,” said Zeke. “These next questions may make you angry, Sam, but that’s not my intention. I want to find the killer.”
“OK,” said Bearcat.
“So what do you know about the Lakeside Trailer Park? That was Jenny’s next stop.”
* * *
Sam Bearcat abruptly stood behind the table, his eyes suddenly flashing anger.
“I don’t need to hear any more of that talk,” he said. “Shut up.”
He was six foot five, Zeke judged, and was a mountain of a man. His fists clenched and his face contorted as he looked at Zeke, then at Doekiller and then at Running Bear.
“No disrespect intended,” said Zeke, quietly. Calmly. “Just asking. The forensics and two witnesses confirm that Jenny was there that night.”
“I don’t care,” said the big man. “I don’t know anything about that. I don’t want to.” He was almost shouting.
“I understand,” said Zeke, still calm. “But we have to find out who killed her. I know it’s painful, Sam.”
“It’s disrespectful. Just because she’s a Native American doesn’t mean she’s a whore!”
“No, it doesn’t,” said Zeke.
The two men looked at each other, sizing each other up.
“I’ll kill the son of a bitch that did this,” Sam said finally. Then he sat down.
“What do you know about Lakeside in general?” asked Zeke, using another tack.
Sam snorted. “Those trailers, some of them’re where the whores turn tricks. We don’t go up there.”
Zeke asked, “We?”
“Me. My guys. That place is for sex and drugs. The oilmen like it, though. They probably killed her.” He held a hand to his eyes and squeezed, sobbed.
“Who runs Lakeside?”
“Ask these guys,” Sam said, gesturing toward the officers. “They’re up that way every week.”
“But who’s behind it, Sam?” asked Zeke again.
“I don’t know. It could be a white man.” He hesitated. “Nathan Douglas owns those trailers. Or it could be Charlie Whitefoot; he’s Indian. Whoever it is, he lets the girls run the business for him, stays behind the scenes.”
Doekiller nodded a confirmation to Zeke.
“Whitefoot’s the guy who rents the trailer? Word is he’s a pothead, in and out of jail,” said Zeke.
“Yeah, like I said, Indians don’t usually go up there a lot. But it sounds like you’ve been talking to people,” Bearcat said, distracted. “Jenny wouldn’t go up there. Especially not alone. She knows better.”
“This, eh, this guy, he lets the girls run the business? That’s really unusual,” Zeke mused.
“I don’t know, I never paid much attention to it.”
“Any idea why Jenny would decide to go there?” asked Zeke.
Sam Bearcat shook his head.
Chapter 5
“You’re heading back to the Keys,” said Tracy Johnson. “You grew up there, didn’t you?”
“I did,” said Zeke with a small smile. “Marathon.”
“As in Vaca Key? Mile marker 50? Seven Mile Bridge?” she asked.
“You’ve been doing your homework,” he said.
“I pay attention,” she joked lightly.
“That just adds to your charm.”
Tracy was a Secret Service agent in the Atlanta office who Zeke had met while protecting a counterfeiter. They’d become an item over the past couple of years.
Now, they were sipping wine on the rooftop veranda of Tracy’s midtown Atlanta condominium, watching the city light up as the sun set. The sunlight reflected off the high-rise windows all around them in bright, unpredictable patterns.
Zeke had flown in from Williston, North Dakota, and Tracy planned to join him on the last leg of his journey south. The Key West flight left in the morning.
Zeke had a habit of moving north in the springtime, finding a place to rent with an ocean nearby, and using it as a base of operations until just past Indian Summer. Then each year, as the inevitable winter approached, he’d pack up and head for a warmer climate. His present home was in Hyannis Port, but he was set to transition to the middle Keys.
“Did you ever wonder about your parents’ deaths?” asked Tracy. “Was the explosion on your boat, the West Wind, really an accident?”
“Wow, where did that come from?” asked Zeke.
“I guess I just made the connection,” she said. “You know, the Keys and your folks, growing up there. Just made me wonder…”
“I did wonder, actually. A few years later, after I’d grieved about the unfairness of it. After I’d moved away for college and the Olympics…”
They were sitting on a couch in front of a stone firepit, their wine glasses on the low table before them. The flames glowed yellow and red and licked at the cool air, and the piped music system played “Stuck Like Glue” by Sugarland. Tracy pulled her sweater closed against the cooling September evening.
“But?” she asked.
“I didn’t have the resources or the skills to pursue it,” said Zeke.
“But now you do.”
“I do. And I probably will, once I’m down there.”
“It was a fuel explosion, right?” asked Tracy, sort of carefully. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want…”
Zeke shook his head. “No, it’s OK. But I can’t figure why someone would do that. It doesn’t make sense that it was intentional.”
Tracy sat quietly.
“I guess I’ll poke around while I’m there, though.”
She nodded. “I’m glad to help,” she said.
He looked at her for a moment. “Yes. Thank you. But now, let’s get inside where it’s warm and find something to eat.”
* * *
“First class travel suits you,” said Zeke. He and Tracy were heading south out of Atlanta together on a flight to Key West.
“It does,” said Tracy, tongue in cheek. “Is this a house hunting trip?”
“I’ve got a place picked out,” said Zeke. “Up in Marathon. I think you’ll like it.”
“Can’t wait,” she said. “It has views of the ocean?”
“From almost every window,” said Zeke.
Tracy was quiet for a minute.
“Where did you live in the Keys?” she asked.
He smiled at the memory. “We lived aboard the boat, the West Wind. Kept it at Boot Key Marina when we weren’t sailing. After that, I stayed with some of my parents’ friends there.”
Tracy knew that he meant after his parents died. The boat, he’d told her, had been destroyed in a fiery explosion that he’d barely escaped.
Zeke was quiet. Then he looked at his watch and said, “Thirty minutes to wheels down.”
* * *
The house was more than adequate, stilted with a large deck, a tin roof and a short pier leading to a boat dock. The exterior of the structure was painted a pastel color and was located on the ocean side of a road developed with similar style homes. There was gated access to the neighborhood and an alarm system, and beneath the house there was a single car garage and an open area for storage, or for parking a second car.
“Can we get inside?” asked Tracy, after they walked around
the exterior of the place.
“Sure,” said Zeke. He got their luggage out of the back of the rental car and climbed the concrete stairs. There was a keypad lock on the door, and Zeke tapped in some numbers and the door swung open.
“Oh my,” said Tracy.
“Hard to beat the views,” said Zeke.
Inside was furniture that Zeke found reminiscent of a surf shack, including a longboard attached to the wall over the couch. The rest of the walls were made up mostly of tinted windows and French doors that led to the open deck. The floor was hardwood and the kitchen looked as if it had been recently renovated, with a gas stove and subzero fridge.
“I like it,” said Tracy, simply.
“And it’s clothing optional,” said Zeke, grinning.
“Even better.”
“Then we’ll stay here,” said Zeke. “At least for a while.”
* * *
“You choose the best spots to take a girl,” said Tracy.
Zeke and Tracy were sitting on the wooden pier behind the house, their feet just touching the salty blue water. The sun was working its way down toward the horizon.
“Maybe you should stay for a few more days,” he offered.
“I’d love to,” she said. A small school of good-sized snapper swam by their feet and disappeared beneath the pier.
“A long weekend just isn’t long enough,” said Zeke.
“I know,” she agreed.
Tracy was wearing a beach coverup over her red bikini. Zeke had on a pair of blue and yellow board shorts. They were sipping a couple cold Corona Extras. “I’ll be heading to D.C. tomorrow,” said Zeke. “Clive set up a meeting with the FBI about the money laundering ring.”
“And alas, I need to go back to Atlanta tomorrow,” she said.
Tracy looked around at the water for a moment, then leaned close to Zeke and whispered, “I’m feeling frisky.”
Zeke said, “You’re always feeling frisky.”
She ignored him and kissed his ear lightly. Then she licked his neck.
“Do you always get what you want?” asked Zeke.
“Pretty much,” she said and kissed him again.
Zeke straightened up and finished his beer. “I guess it’s time for a shower, then,” he said.
“Ooo, good idea,” she said. “Can I get you to wash my back?”
“For starters,” he said, and stood up. He slipped on his flip-flops, leaned over and helped Tracy up. She stood, stretched and whispered into his ear. Then she grabbed his hand and they walked toward the cottage.
“Be careful what you wish for,” Zeke said.
* * *
“I hate that we have to go,” Tracy said.
“Me, too. Seems a shame to be anywhere else.” Zeke was packing a small carry-on while glancing out the bedroom window every few seconds. Tracy was lying across the bed.
“I’ll meet you back here in a couple weeks,” said Zeke. “In the meantime, see if you can find some extra days off.”
“You said you’re heading to D.C.?” she asked. “To meet with Clive?”
“About a money laundering situation,” said Zeke. “A chain of pawnshops the Feds have targeted.”
“We know about counterfeiting in the Secret Service,” said Tracy, “but not so much about money laundries.”
“I’m not an expert,” said Zeke, “but logically, the whole thing is counterintuitive.”
“How so?” she asked, lazily.
“Well, essentially the plan is to overpay for something, which allows dirty money to enter the cash flow stream of a business, and it gets mixed in with clean funds. Can’t tell them apart,” said Zeke.
“Like with the pawnshops?” she asked.
“Sure, that’s an example,” said Zeke. “A money launderer has a pawnshop full of pawned items for sale. Guitars and drums and guns and jewelry, or even stereo systems that people have hocked. He offers them at, say, 30% over their real value. The guys with the dirty money, maybe stolen money or money from drugs or from illegal gambling, those guys buy the item for list price. They pay with cash and the dirty money finds its way into the pawnshop owner’s bank account.”
“And voila, it’s clean!” said Tracy.
“I didn’t know you spoke French,” Zeke teased.
“Mais oui. I do,” said Tracy.
“Now multiply that now-clean money by a hundred pawnshops in multiple cities,” said Zeke.
“That’s big business.”
Zeke nodded and set a pair of chinos in his carry-on. “The only bigger laundry I can think of would be Las Vegas.”
“And you raided one of the pawnshops?” she asked.
“We did. The FBI wanted the owner arrested on a trumped up charge, so they could look at his financials. They hired us because they didn’t want to tip their hand and reveal their interest in the entire pawnshop chain. It’s a franchise operation, actually.”
“So the FBI didn’t want the franchisors to know that they were looking at them?” asked Tracy.
“Yes. They hired us to serve a local warrant and arrest the owner. But it didn’t go as planned.”
“What happened?” asked Tracy.
“We found the owner, but he was dead. It looked like a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
“That sounds like a pretty big coincidence,” said Tracy.
“I agree,” Zeke said.
Chapter 6
FBI Special Agent Robert Small sat uncomfortably in an overstuffed leather chair in Clive Greene’s office. He obviously preferred straight-backed chairs with more support. As he squirmed, looking for an authoritative position while still seated, he said, “Thank you for inviting me to visit with you about this matter.”
Zeke smiled to himself at the man’s effort to retain control of the situation.
Clive said, “Certainly.”
“As you know,” Small continued, “I’m in white-collar crime. I’m one of the Bureau’s experts on organized money laundering, as it were.” He wiggled, still trying to find a comfortable spot.
Clive said, “Quite so.”
“This pawnshop thing isn’t unusual at all,” Small continued. “Anywhere items of unknown value are purchased, you’ll find some level of laundering going on.”
Small finally slid forward in his chair and planted his feet on the floor. He was a thin man with a blond buzz cut and black rimmed glasses, dressed in a blue suit appointed with cufflinks and a tie clip. His shoes looked as if they’d just been shined.
Clive nodded encouragingly, and Small continued. “If it can be purchased at a premium without evidence of such, then resold, usually at a loss, the launderers walk away with what we call ‘clean money’. They take a loss on every transaction, but that’s the cost of doing business,” Small continued.
“That’s got to be a huge operation,” said Zeke. “With a lot of coordination.”
“It’s an enterprise,” said Small, sounding smug. “Not everyone can grasp it.”
“How do you mean?” asked Clive.
“Well, there’s a lot of momentum here. It’s not an occasional thing. These guys are constantly feeding the pipeline. They jam dirty money in, and clean money comes out the other end. But it’s taken years to build up to it. It got easier for them a few years ago when the pawnshops started franchising.”
“I could see that,” said Zeke. “And I’ll bet the launderers helped finance the expansion of franchises.”
“They did,” said Small. “Tough to prove, but the short answer is ‘yes, they did.’”
“And Conrad was involved in this?” Clive asked Small.
“He was. But we don’t know why he’d commit suicide,” said Small. “He had a good thing going.”
* * *
“But now we’re dealing with cryptocurrency,” Small continued. “A new way to launder cash.”
They’d discussed the situation at Conrad’s pawnshop, and Small had reviewed the company books with them, showing them where the money laundering was occurrin
g. They were taking a break from the accounting.
“How does that work?” asked Clive, sipping some Earl Grey tea.
“It’s all credits and debits,” said Small. “You don’t actually take possession of Bitcoins. What makes it doubly hard is the new software; it makes the Bitcoin buyer virtually anonymous.”
“How’s it being used to launder money, then?” asked Clive.
“Several ways,” said Small, warming to the topic. “Criminals can load up gift cards with illegal gains, such as drug money, money from human traffic, terrorist money, and use the cards to buy Bitcoins online. Then they can easily move that money around the world on the dark web. It’s like it disappears.”
“There’s no central regulation for that?” asked Zeke.
“They’re working on it. But, no, not like a bank would have. And there’s no requirement for detailed transaction records.”
“Hmm.” Clive sipped his tea.
“Then there’re the ATMs.” Small plucked at something on the knee of his suit pants.
“ATMs?” asked Clive.
“Right, but not a traditional ATM. Take your currency to the machine and put it in. In return, you receive cryptocurrency, which you keep in your ‘wallet’ on the web.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen such an ATM,” said Clive.
“There are about a hundred of them in and around London,” said Small with a slight smile. “And over two thousand in the United States.”
“Where?” asked Clive.
“They’re in most states. They charge up to 7% to buy cryptocurrency and around 4% to sell it.”
“That gets a lot of use by drug dealers and criminal organizations, I’d guess,” said Clive.
“It really does. The arrests that the FBI has made were mostly based on a sting operation, not through detection of the cryptocurrency. FBI guys approach the bad guys to buy drugs or kiddy porn, and find the Bitcoins after they’ve arrested the guy.”
