“Dolores Cutler? I’m afraid she’s been held up.” I pulled out the chair and sat.
At that moment, Dolores Cutler was most likely still desperately trying to convince the painting crew that I had sent to her apartment that she had not hired them, did not want her apartment painted that day, and that she had no time to discuss colors with the short, pushy man with the sad face. Roger would be sure to buy me at least half an hour.
This time it took Selena a bit longer to recuperate. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again, and closed once more. She reached for her purse and pulled out her cell phone. I waited until she had finished dialing before hitting the button on the jammer in my jacket pocket. McKenna’s friend had assured me that it was efficient, well-charged, and illegal. She scowled at the phone, tried again, and finally dropped it back into her purse.
I forced my scratchy voice to sound as calm and forceful as possible. “If you try to leave, I will stand up and make a scene. I will make loud entreaties that you not abandon me, and think back on all we have meant to each other. There will be references to specific sexual acts that you enjoy.”
Her face lost all color. “How dare you? Lies! Who would believe it? Or even listen?”
I looked around at a hundred or more well-dressed, Botoxed, and surgically enhanced women shoppers. “I’d bet most of them. You’ll be on Page Six tomorrow.” I smiled politely. “I’m having the crab and shrimp salad. What about you?”
“You’re insane.”
“But only north-northeast, and today the wind is southerly. Bear with me. I only need your attention for a few minutes. Then I will go and you may never have to see me again.”
“I’m leaving.” She pushed her chair back.
I stood up and leaned over the table. “Selena!” I cried. “You can’t! Please. I left my wife and child for you.”
Her head rocked back. I had the attention of everyone within three tables of us. If I turned up the volume just a bit, I would have the whole room hanging on every word. Some women were already smiling in anticipation of a coming scene. No one was even bothering with being too polite to listen.
Selena spoke through clenched teeth. “Please sit down, Mr. Stafford.”
The headwaiter was approaching. I winked broadly at the women at the next table. They giggled like seventh graders. I grinned and sat down.
“Thank you for agreeing to see me,” I said.
“May I be of some assistance?” The headwaiter hovered, now unsure if he was intervening or interrupting.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m having the lump crab and shrimp salad. Mrs. Haley will have her usual.”
He took it in stride. “Mark’s salad, no dressing. And to drink?”
“Water for me.” I turned to her. “A glass of Sancerre?” Amazing, the depth of information that Internet search engines maintain.
She stared the waiter down for a moment. “No. I will have a vodka martini. Up. No fruit.”
“Certainly, Mrs. Haley.”
We waited for him to get out of range. There were still a few surreptitious glances from the crowd around us, hoping for a bit more of a show, but the background murmur began to grow again, the sounds of silverware on plates, the small laugh suddenly overwhelmed by the catty crow.
“What in hell do you want?”
What I wanted right then was a fresh pack of tissues so I could blast a clear path to my sinuses and stop feeling like I was drowning on land.
“Yesterday, your husband came close to torching his whole career and earning himself an extended stay with the BOP. And look at you. Out celebrating?”
“That’s vile.”
“Did I get too close? To the truth, I mean.”
“I have nothing to say.”
“Then I’ll just keep the conversation going on my own, shall I?” I felt a sneeze coming. I twitched my nose to divert it. It didn’t help.
The drinks arrived. I sipped my water. She took a long slug of the martini.
“I hired a hacker. He got into your home computer—your address book, calendar, email. That’s how I was able to find you here and arrange for Mrs. Cutler’s apartment to be painted.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
I ignored the question. She knew the answer. “My guy is not quite as slick as the crew you used, but he found their footprints. They’re good. You got your money’s worth.” I gave a small cough in the hopes of persuading my nose that a sneeze really wasn’t necessary.
She took another slug. Two-thirds of the cocktail was gone. “There’s no connection.”
“Legal connection? No. I’m sure of that. Still, they’re hackers. Hackers don’t bribe bank officers and that’s what someone would have had to do to set up the account in the first place. You had help there.”
The salads arrived.
“Mrs. Haley would like another martini,” I said. She didn’t object.
“But that was a minor hurdle,” I continued. “It’s sad. The banker is probably going to be the only one to take a dive on this. Once I show your husband’s lawyer the evidence of hacking, he’ll be in the clear. Unless the banker has someone to roll over on, he’s going down.”
She gave me a long appraising look. “What do you think you know?”
The urge to sneeze was becoming unbearable. “Excuse me,” I said, grabbing the white linen napkin just in time. I squeezed my nose as hard as I could and let the spasm rock me. I refused to sneeze into the napkin. The back draft sent pinwheels spinning across my eyes. For a moment, I was deaf, blind, and stupid.
“Sorry,” I said. “It’s a cold.”
“Take your time,” she said, smiling happily at my discomfort.
“I know the story. I know how your friend works. I know who helped you on this.” I wasn’t lying. I did know. The story about Penn had given me everything I needed to know about him—about the way he worked. Proving it was another story. It wouldn’t hurt to exaggerate just a bit. “I have the proof, and when I’m ready, I will sink his boat and let the news-reporter sharks pick over his remains.”
I thought I had her. I could see her waver. She finished the drink and looked around for its replacement. The prospect of a second martini must have restored something in her. The steel in her voice came back. “You can’t touch him. And don’t waste your sympathy on the banker. He was a cipher.”
So much the better, I thought. Once we found him, he would be that much easier to flip and give evidence.
I took a bite of the crab, amazed that I could taste it. Taste anything. It was good. She ignored her salad.
“Were you involved in the negotiations?”
“No. I just picked up the tab.”
The shrimp was good, too. I finished the crab first. Feed a cold? I thought that was right.
“Then you waited until the special board meeting. Who called it? You? Or did someone else front it? Your special friend? Or someone else. It wouldn’t have been difficult for you to talk one of the others into calling for it. Your husband didn’t want to go public with the test results, but you forced his hand. You must have enjoyed watching him gloat two weeks later when the news had been absorbed, forgotten about, and the stock was back where it was in the first place. Of course, by that time, you had already set him up quite nicely.”
The second martini arrived.
“Keep your voice down.”
“Sorry,” I whispered. “But I’ll only be more conspicuous if I start whispering.”
“How much do you want?”
“To bury the story? To let your husband go down for something he didn’t do? I don’t think even you can afford that.” I could feel another sneeze coming on. If I held that one in, too, I might possibly blow my eardrums out or burst a blood vessel.
“Then what do you want?” She still hadn’t taken a bite of her salad, but was already wel
l on her way to finishing the second drink.
“Tell him. Or I’ll tell him myself. I’ll give you twenty-four hours. Tomorrow at noon I start dialing the newspapers.” I stood up, took some bills from my pocket, and dropped them on the table. “Lunch is on me.” I took the napkin—I was going to need it.
27
Virgil called while I was trying to flag a cab on Madison. I decided to walk while I talked.
“What do you mean, ‘He didn’t do it’? What else do you know?”
I blew my nose again before answering. I tucked the despoiled napkin into my back pocket. “So I’m still working for you?”
“Goddamn you!”
“Is that a yes?”
He took a minute before answering. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was wrong. If you had given me that information earlier, I might have sold our shares and opened the firm up to insider trading charges. Thank you.”
It was a nice speech. I tried to match it. “And I’m sorry I didn’t trust you with the information, but it’s not all bad. In fact, it’s very good. Someone had to bribe a bank officer to open that account. And they had to have hacking skills way beyond anything Haley might have come across.”
“You can prove this?”
“Get me the lawyer’s email and I will make sure he has all he needs by tomorrow afternoon.”
“So who’s behind it? Is Haley right? The Chinese?”
“I think the answer is a lot closer to home. I’ve learned a few things in the last twenty-four hours. I’ve guessed at a few more. And I just had lunch with one of the major co-conspirators.”
I filled him in on my lunch. He didn’t interrupt.
“Penn and Selena working together?” he said at the end. “They’re an unlikely couple.”
“This is how Penn works,” I said. “He seems to have a knack for finding unhappy women and using them to get where he wants to be.”
“What do you think she’ll do?”
“I leaned hard. Not everything I said is, how shall I put it, verifiable. But I think she bought it. I gave her a deadline of tomorrow. Though I doubt it will take her that long to make up her mind. I give it eighty-twenty she confesses the whole thing to him tonight.”
“How much can I tell the lawyer?”
“Right now? I gave her twenty-four hours, Virgil.”
“And the stock is off twenty-four percent.”
“The goddamn markets can wait a day,” I heard myself say.
“Hah! I never, never, would have expected you to come out with that statement.”
“I’m serious. You tell the lawyer, and ten minutes later the stock will be trading up like a rocket.”
“What about the banker? Can we start trying to identify him?”
I couldn’t see the harm in getting that process moving. I gave Virgil the name of the bank and the banker’s authorization code. “They’ll probably put up roadblocks if you go straight at them. And to get a court order in Bermuda could take an eternity.”
“I’ll use my contacts in London. I’m sure I can get someone to finesse this our way.”
I checked my watch. “London’s closed. They’ll all be gone from their offices by this hour.”
Virgil chuckled. “Then I’ll call them at home.”
“Once Selena talks to Haley,” I said, “I see this whole thing splitting wide open.”
He gave a sad sigh. “She may end up doing time.”
“Come on, Virgil. She’ll write a check and take a plea. Rich women don’t go to jail.”
“Martha Stewart. Leona Helmsley,” he said.
“All right. Point taken. Will the wife be our next client, then?”
“She is the single largest shareholder. We can get along without her for a while if we have to, but I think we owe her our support.”
“And you do run a full-service firm,” I said.
“Left to its own devices, money makes enemies. If you want to be around for the long haul, you need to work hard at making friends.”
28
I rarely turned on my phone before the Kid was at school. Mornings were just for us.
Besides, the cold had traveled into my throat while I was sleeping. I felt better, but I sounded like I’d been singing death metal all night.
The Kid finished his cereal—Cheerios with a few slices of banana—and left the table as soon as he could. My cold scared him, and the sound of my voice made him doubly uncomfortable. Luckily, he was on remote that morning and went about getting ready without much fuss.
My iPad beeped at me while I was reading the Journal. Haley and Arinna Labs were still a big story. They were about to get bigger.
I opened my email. Virgil. Your phone is turned off.
I wrote back. I know.
CALL ME.
I was sure that Virgil would know that the use of all capitals indicated that he was yelling. It was very early in the morning for him to be yelling. I thought about ignoring the message, but that would only put off the inevitable, and had a good chance of making it much worse.
“Virgil here.” He sounded more defeated than angry.
“What’s up?” I said, trying not to sound like an escapee from World War Z.
“Haley’s been arrested.”
“Damn. That was fast.”
“Not for insider trading. For murder. His wife was found late last night. Dead on the beach by their house on Long Island. At the bottom of the steps on the cliff.”
A cold, strong hand was squeezing my heart and there was a deafening rush in my ears. I had set that woman on the path that got her killed.
“Any chance it was an accident?” I was a coward.
“Not unless she accidentally shot herself on the way down.”
I felt no grief—I barely knew her—but a mountain of guilt was bearing down on my chest. Angie had been killed because of my actions, and now this stranger. If Haley had pulled the trigger, I vowed that I would see him pay. And if he hadn’t, I was going to find out who did.
“What can I do?”
“The lawyer is going in to see him in an hour. Go with him. Carry a briefcase and no one will question you.”
“Should I bring the evidence I found?”
“I don’t think it makes a difference at this point, but why not?”
“And the lawyer’s okay with this?”
“He doesn’t like it, but he’s not in charge. Haley wants you there.”
That was interesting. Did Haley think he could con me? Or did he think he needed me? “Where is he?”
“NYPD found him coming out of some downtown club at four this morning. They’re giving him the VIP treatment. He’s at One Police Plaza until they take him out to Nassau County.”
“I’ll be there.” I went to hang up and another thought came to mind. “Wait! Virgil. Are you still there?”
“What is it?”
“The banker. Any luck from your London people?”
“They say they’ll have an answer this morning.”
—
An hour later, I met Haley’s lawyer in front of One Police Plaza. Though he had been up since Haley’s call soon after the arrest, he still looked ready to argue an appeal in front of the Supreme Court. His starched white shirt whispered when he moved.
I gave him a CD with McKenna’s and my work on the insider trading case. “I know there are bigger issues right now, but this might come in handy down the road.”
He didn’t look at it or ask any questions. The CD went into his briefcase. “If anyone asks, I will tell them that you are my investigator. Do not try to pass yourself off as a lawyer.” He scanned my suit, overcoat, and briefcase. “Though you do look the part. Maybe no one will bother to ask.” He looked the part, too. Tall, hawk-nosed, pale-eyed, and expensively dressed.
No one did bother to as
k me anything. A grim-faced, overweight uniformed cop ushered us into a cramped conference room.
The room was so small that the mild claustrophobia that I had developed while in prison advanced to a state of aches, itches, tics, and an ocular migraine that threatened to transform into a headache capable of putting me in bed for a week. Haley wasn’t looking much better. He was red-eyed, hungover, and his sweat and breath smelled of alcohol.
“I didn’t do this thing.” He was speaking to me—desperation and grief mixed with the all-night partying made his voice more hoarse and strained than mine. The last time he had proclaimed his innocence, I had been much too skeptical. It had blinded me. I was afraid to make the same mistake again.
The lawyer made one more play for getting me out of the room, but Haley shut him down. “This is the man who has been working to prove to the prosecuting attorney that I am innocent of insider trading. If I remember correctly, your advice was to plead guilty to a lesser charge. You’re here because you have to be. He’s here because I want him to be.”
The lawyer took defeat gracefully. He gave me a brief smile and turned back to Haley. “This is not my usual type of case. I’ll have someone else from the firm at your arraignment in Hempstead. At this point, my only advice is to say nothing. To anyone.”
I didn’t bother with the niceties of the law or the advice of a specialist in corporate law. “Just tell me what happened.”
Haley had spent the day in his office out at the lab, and trying not to watch what the market was doing to the price of his stock. He stayed there late—the rest of the staff had all left—when security told him that Selena had just driven onto the grounds. This was a rare event. He left the lab, watched her drive up to the main house, and followed.
He found her in the sitting room at the back of the house. Her territory. The room had a broad view of the Sound and the steps leading down the cliff. On the rare times she visited the house, that was where she would stay for hours at a time, drinking glass after glass of white wine.
Haley confronted her. He was going through this gauntlet of reporters and prosecutors and he expected her support. She had already opened a bottle and was defensive and prepared for an argument, rather than a reconciliation.
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