Insider Justice

by Dennis Carstens

  “I’m very jealous,” Cal lightly said.

  “No, you’re not,” Maddy replied. “I need a bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

  Maddy locked the bathroom door, put the lid down on the toilet, sat down and took out her phone. She scrolled through the photos, pleased she had several good quality shots of Aidan. A minute later she had finished emailing the photos to Paxton.

  “So, this the mysterious Aidan Walsh,” Payton quietly said.

  Marc and Carvelli were looking over her shoulder as she opened each photo on her phone.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s the guy who was out in Simpson’s yard with the Doberman the night we…”

  “Paxton doesn’t need the details,” Marc quickly said cutting him off.

  “Do I want to know what night this was and what you were up to?” Paxton asked turning her head to look up at an embarrassed Carvelli.

  “Um, ah, nothing,” he quickly said.

  Paxton scrolled her directory, pressed on a number and put the phone to her ear.

  “Hi, Sean,” she said when the call was answered. She looked at Carvelli and said, “I mean, Uncle Sean, former FBI agent and all-around badass.”

  This caused Carvelli to sit up straight with his eyes and mouth open.

  “Who are you talking to?” Uncle Sean asked.

  “This ex-Minneapolis cop who’s been coming on to me,” she replied.

  “Thank him,” Sean said. “It’s about time somebody did.”

  Paxton smiled, covered the phone and said to Carvelli, “He said I should thank you.”

  She removed her hand from the phone and Carvelli leaned forward and loudly said into it, “Sean, you’re absolutely right.”

  Everyone including Sean got a good laugh from that. Then Sean said, “I’ll bet he’s a good man.”

  Paxton looked at Carvelli, slightly smiled and said, “You’re right. He is. Anyway,” she continued. “I have photos of that guy, Aidan Walsh. I’ll send them to you. You and Les check them out and call me. Is he there?”

  “He’ll be here in a few minutes,” Sean replied, then told her his email address.

  “On the way,” Paxton said. “Thanks, Sean. Call me back.”

  “Send them to my hacker guy,” Carvelli said as he held his phone. “I’ll call him and let him know.” He read off Paul Baker’s email then called the hacker to let him know what was coming. He also told him to run facial recognition on Walsh.

  “He has facial recognition software?” Paxton said.

  “Um, well, he, ah, sort of does,” Carvelli said.

  “He hacks it,” Paxton said.

  “Don’t ask questions you don’t want answered,” Carvelli said.

  Paxton turned to Marc and asked, “Where did you find him?”

  “Believe it or not, he comes in handy as long as you don’t ask too many questions,” Marc said.

  All the while this was taking place, Conrad Hilton was sitting in the van’s driver’s seat with an expensive headset on his ears. He was still monitoring Maddy as she moved about the party.

  Marc tapped him on the shoulder. When Conrad uncovered his right ear, Marc asked, “Anything interesting?”

  “No, not really. Sounds like a bunch of rich assholes bragging about themselves. Small talk stuff.”

  “Let us know if you hear anything worthwhile,” Marc said.

  “Will do.”

  Lester Snelling was sitting on the couch in Sean’s living room looking at the photos on Sean’s phone. By the time he had seen the third or fourth one, he was ninety percent certain. When he finished, he was up to ninety-nine percent.

  “That’s him, that’s Aidan O’Keefe. I’d swear to it. It’s been what,” he continued as he handed the phone to Sean, “at least thirty years, but it’s him. And it makes sense that he’d be hooked up with Cal Simpson, aka Walter Kirk. I’ll tell you something else, now that I know he’s alive, he’s the guy you’re looking for, Sean. He’s the guy who ratted us to your U.S. Attorney who gave you the tip.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because it was his brother who was our leader. His name was Timothy O’Keefe,” Les said.

  “Why would he rat on his brother?” Sean asked.

  Les chuckled and said, “Because they hated each other’s guts. And if that wasn’t enough, Timmy put a bullet in Aidan because he caught Aidan in bed with Timmy’s wife.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  Congressman Del Peterson—definitely not working on behalf of his constituents—slipped onto the barstool. He held up a finger to get the bartender’s attention and waited patiently for her. He was in an upscale restaurant called The Fireside Inn. It was located in a suburb of St. Paul—Eagan—outside of Peterson’s Congressional District. He preferred places where he would not likely be recognized.

  Congress was in its Labor Day recess for two weeks. Even though he was not at work in Washington, he still had work to do. Today, the Tuesday after Labor Day, he had spent the day at his local office in Maplewood, another suburb of St. Paul. It was a day to meet prominent constituents, donors and fundraisers. It was a type of day Peterson hated. Ass-kissing and sucking up to these people was a part of the job he hated. One more election, he kept telling himself, and his retirement plan would be fully funded. Even enough to unload the lovely Mrs. Peterson. That thought alone always brought a smile.

  Two minutes after the congressman took his seat at the bar, a mildly swarthy-looking Italian gentleman walked in. Tony Carvelli also took a seat at the bar, two chairs down from Del Peterson. Carvelli ordered a scotch and ignored his target and the empty seat between them.

  Barely three minutes after Carvelli sat down, a very attractive woman entered the bar. She was modestly but tastefully dressed and made up to look ten years older. She stood in the entryway looking at the crowd then headed toward Peterson and the empty seat next to him.

  Carvelli could see her in the mirror behind the bar. When she was ten feet away, he looked at his watch, picked up his drink, stood and walked away from the chair he had saved for her.

  The woman slid onto the chair and pushed the five-dollar bill Carvelli had left onto the bar rail. She ordered a white wine, glanced to her right and formed a polite smile with her mouth at Peterson.

  Carvelli had gone to the men’s room to get out of the way. When he came back he found an empty seat at the other end of the bar. His job was to simply keep an eye on things. After trailing Peterson for two days, Carvelli and his ex-cop pals could see an easy set-up.

  Within a half an hour, the woman who had taken Carvelli’s seat had moved into the empty one next to Peterson. A half-hour later they were in the dining room having dinner. By the end of the evening, Del Peterson was practically flapping his hands and barking like a seal for her.

  Around the same time, Carvelli was sipping the scotch, Marc Kadella and his son parked his Buick SUV at Vivian Donahue’s mansion. They exited Marc’s car and as they walked toward the entrance, Eric stopped to look over the exterior and grounds.

  “This is awesome,” Eric said. “It’s really awesome.”

  “God, I hate that word,” Marc said to him. “The last really awesome event was the moon landing and that was before I was born. Come on, you,” he said to his son.

  A minute or so later they were escorted into the library where they found Vivian and Maddy waiting for them. Greetings were made including a hug for Eric from Maddy, which he held a little longer than necessary.

  “You smell nice,” Eric told her.

  “Thank you, Eric,” she said while giving Marc a strange look. “It’s nice to have one of the Kadella men notice.”

  “You have a beautiful home, Mrs. Donahue,” Eric told Vivian. “It’s...”

  “Awesome,” Marc said.

  “It’s a museum,” Vivian replied. “But it’s also the family home. And please call me Vivian.”

  The four of them took chairs around a table and Maddy took out her phone.

  “I’m going to call P
axton and put her on speaker,” she said.

  When Paxton was ready, Eric began.

  “I spent a lot of today at work looking for short selling of Cannon Brothers stock. A couple of the analysts got involved and we found quite a bit of it. Much more than either of these guys would say was normal. Especially since they found the orders for the sales all being put into place within forty-eight hours of the day that memo hit the news,” Eric said.

  “That’s no coincidence,” Vivian said after Eric told them the number of shares that were shorted. “That must be a hundred fifty to two hundred million dollars’ worth.”

  “The guys did some digging. That kind of traffic would have to be reported,” Eric explained. “They came up with a list of fifty-two people and entities that held the short sale orders that were placed just before the crash.”

  “We spent the last hour before coming here comparing them to the guest list of Cal Simpson’s friends that we have,” Marc said. “You remember, he met with Cannon Brothers’ executives a short while ago,” Marc said.

  “And you found what?” Maddy excitedly asked thinking they were on to something.

  “Nothing,” Marc answered. “Not a single match of anyone. But,” he continued, “on the drive over here, I thought about Tony’s guy, the computer….”

  “Don’t say hacker,” Paxton said through the phone.

  “Um, Tony’s computer expert,” Marc said. “Anyway, we should get the list to him and see what he can find out.”

  “I’ll call Anthony now,” Vivian said.

  “Do you have your list of the short sellers with you, Marc?” Paxton asked.

  “Sure,” he replied.

  “Photograph it and email it to me,” Paxton told him.

  “Um, sure, I’ll ah…” Marc started to say.

  “I’ll do it,” Maddy said. “Mr. Tech Savvy here will screw it up.”

  “Anything else?” Paxton asked.

  “No, not really,” Marc replied. “We need to figure out who these people are.”

  “If they’re even real,” Maddy said. “Why didn’t this ring bells at the SEC?” Maddy said into the phone.

  “Don’t know,” Paxton replied. “I know someone I can discreetly ask.”

  “Goodbye, Anthony,” they heard Vivian say into her phone.

  “He said to photograph the list and email it to his guy,” Vivian said.

  She handed Maddy a slip of paper and said, “Here’s his email address. Anthony is calling him now to let him know what’s coming and what we want.”

  “You know, folks,” Marc said. “This could be a total waste of time.”

  “I don’t think so,” Maddy said. “Lynn and Zach’s murders are tied to that engineer’s memo. I’d bet on it. What other motive could there be? Having an affair, an affair that Samantha Simpson knew about? I don’t buy it. No, something’s going on and these politicians are in on it.”

  Vivian’s phone rang and she removed it from the pocket of her slacks and looked at the ID.

  “Hello, Arthur,” she said into the phone. “Have you found anything for me?”

  “Yes, Vivian,” the man replied. “There were several spending bills approved. Most of them were small appropriations for home district pork projects. Roads and bridges, a sewage plant in Kentucky, things like that. There were two bills that caught my attention that went to the President. Oddly they were both for the same company; Morton Aviation. They’re developing a plane to replace the A-10 Thunderbolt also known as the Warthog. It’s called the A-15 and they’ve appropriated fifteen plus billion to purchase seven hundred over the next six years.

  “The other bill’s for almost four billion to buy one-hundred executive type civilian jets for the government. Quite the coup for Morton Aviation.”

  “It certainly sounds like it, Arthur. Thank you and say hello to Edie for me.”

  “I will, Vivian. Call anytime.”

  Vivian had moved to a desk during the call and had written down the information. She returned to her seat at the table while everyone watched her with looks of anticipation.

  “During all of the phone calls we have monitored and recorded, has anyone heard any mention of Morton Aviation?”

  “Paxton,” Marc said into the phone, “did you hear that?”

  “I didn’t hear the first part,” she lied. “Something about a recording. The rest was garbled.”

  “Be careful what you say to her,” Maddy admonished Marc.

  “Okay, let me ask again. Do you know anything about a company called Morton Aviation?” Marc asked.

  “No, never heard of them. I’ll see what I can find out,” she replied. “I have to go everyone. Talk to you later.”

  The very next day, in the middle of the afternoon, Conrad’s van was parked in an apartment complex lot. It was the same lot—the exact same parking space—where Tony Carvelli had first found him. Conrad was again watching and recording the action in the same apartment in the complex down the hill from him. The action in the third-floor bedroom with the drapes left open featured a congressman friend of Cal Simpson’s. Del Peterson, albeit unaware, was starring in a short porn movie with the woman who had picked him up two nights ago.

  “You know, Conrad,” Carvelli said from the back of the van, “you enjoy this a little too much.”

  “I do,” Conrad laughed. “I just wish once I could be there when the sucker is shown the evidence. Oh, oh, here we go. I always like this shot.”

  “What?” a curious Carvelli asked as he duck-walked forward to take a look.

  Conrad leaned to his left so Tony could look through the camera. “Oh yeah, that will endear him to the lucky Mrs. Peterson,” Carvelli said watching the congressman with his face between Angela’s legs.

  Conrad lightly slapped Carvelli on the shoulder and said, “Hey, my turn.”

  Carvelli moved aside and a second after Conrad put his eye to the camera the van’s side door opened. To their surprise, Maddy Rivers unexpectedly climbed in. Before closing the door behind her, knowing what they were up to, she gave them both a ‘disappointed-in-you’ look.

  “You two should be ashamed of yourselves. Ogling over a private, intimate moment between two people obviously in love,” she said.

  “What?” Carvelli said. “Obviously what?”

  “Now get out of the way and let me take a look,” she said as she crawled forward and pushed both men out of the way.

  Maddy watched through the camera for at least thirty seconds then said, “I’ll say this. By the way, she’s moaning and groaning, you do have sound, right?” she said to Conrad while still watching.

  “Yeah,” he admitted.

  “The old congressman is really good at what he’s doing, or she’s putting on a great act,” Maddy said.

  She turned away from the camera and asked Carvelli, “When are you going to have the chat with him?”

  Carvelli didn’t respond. Instead, he stared at her with the same disapproving look she had given him.

  Maddy ignored him and said to Conrad, “Give me the headphones.”

  Conrad looked at Carvelli who simply shrugged as Conrad reluctantly handed her the headphones.

  Maddy put them on, then returned to the camera to watch some more.

  “Oh, wow. Oh yeah. Giddyup, ride ‘em, cowboy,” she said while watching and listening.

  “Okay,” Carvelli said. “That’s enough. You’ve embarrassed us enough.”

  Maddy started laughing and handed the headphones to Conrad.

  “It’s a guy thing,” Carvelli said. “Besides, it was Conrad, not me.”

  “Hey, you pushed me out of the way…”

  “Shut up, Conrad,” Carvelli sneered.

  All the while Maddy was laughing hysterically. “That’s why I stopped by. Just to catch you two.”

  She smiled at their discomfort then admitted she had done the same thing a few times working divorce cases.

  “Let’s get serious,” Maddy said. “How are you going to go at h
im?”

  “I’m going to go right at him and hit him like a freight train,” Carvelli replied. “The whole nine yards. I’ll lay a few pictures on him of him with Angela first. Then tell him we know it all. The insider trading, the money laundering, conspiracy to commit murder, you name it.”

  “When?” Maddy asked.

  “Today,” Carvelli said. “I’m going to follow him, and even if he goes home, I’ll go after him. The idea is to hit him hard and scare him shitless.”

  “Give me a call later,” Maddy told Carvelli as she started to leave.

  “You want a copy of the tape?” Carvelli asked.

  Maddy started laughing again then said, “Nice shot. I guess I deserved that.”

  Carvelli pushed open the glass door to the congressman’s Woodbury office. He walked in and smiled at the teenage receptionist. He noticed two other staff members, one male and one female, concentrating on their work, ignoring him.

  “May I help you?” the receptionist politely asked.

  “Hello,” Carvelli said. “Yes, I need to see Congressman Peterson.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “The congressman isn’t in. Can I take a…”

  “Yes, he is,” Carvelli said, still pleasantly smiling. “I followed him here and saw him come in.”

  “I, ah, I’m not sure…”

  “Tell him I’m a friend of the friend of his he was with this afternoon and he really needs to see me.”

  Carvelli had said this much more forcefully and quietly as he leaned over the young girl’s desk. Flustered she picked up her phone and punched in a two-digit number.

  Within seconds of the receptionist’s call, Peterson was scurrying out of his office door. Carvelli casually watched him approach, his right hand extended and a politician’s smile on his face. Carvelli also noticed a thin bead of sweat forming along the congressman’s hairline.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” Peterson said as they shook hands.

  “Let’s talk in your office,” Carvelli said. Carvelli looked at the uncertain receptionist and said, “Hold the congressman’s calls. He’ll be busy for a while.”