Stabenow, Dana - Shugak 10 - Midnight Come Again

by Midnight Come Again(lit)

  "Thanks," Kate said with determined civility. "I'll yell if I need help." Her smile of thanks was more of a grimace. Heidi looked a little startled. "Well, take your time. There's only one other person in here, and he's reading, so I can help whenever you want." She retreated to her desk.

  Bering was hooked up to a computer service, so Kate could do a search on the name of Michael Sullivan and another on the name of Christopher Overmore and make a list of dates of articles. Overmore's name got far more hits than Sullivan's, which was not surprising. She concentrated on the articles written within the past twenty years, in the Juneau Empire, the Anchorage Daily News, and the Bering Sea Times.

  She hit paydirt almost from the first frame.

  Overmore had been a banker before he had been a senator, one of the founders of Great Land Savings and Loan, which in turn was one of the original repositories of funds dispersed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1972. The savings and loan had gone under during the financial bust in the mid-eighties, involving the loss of twenty-three million dollars. Most of that twenty-three million had originally belonged to five Native associations around the state.

  Kate was delighted to read that in 1992 there had been an indictment, followed by a trial and, further, that the Anchorage Daily News had sicced Sheila Toomey onto it. Toomey wrote smart, always a plus. Kate kept her savings on her kitchen table in a one-pound Darigpld butter can. She would need someone who wrote smart to explain major-league banking to her.

  Toomey wrote funny, too, although it would be a stretch, even for her, to write funny about mortgage rates.

  It took the state six years to hand down forty-two counts of conspiracy and bank fraud, and another two years to bring the accused to trial. The prosecutor claimed that Overmore et al had made a number of unsecured loans in the amount of five hundred thousand dollars each to members of the bank's board, so that the board members could buy stock in an attempt to take over another bank, this one in Fairbanks. Witnesses testified that they thought the loans so problematical that lower management refused to sign off on them. The defense attorney protested that this was simply taking advantage of a good business opportunity, as the bank in question was undervalued and badly run.

  The prosecution claimed that the officials of Great Land Savings and Loan had falsified minutes and forged documents to get federal approval of the takeover plan and to prove its adherence to the regulatory process. Witnesses from the Federal Reserve Bank said they'd never seen said documents and certainly had never signed off on them. The defense attorney protested that the allegedly falsified documents were last-minute corrections made sloppily by a legal secretary who wanted to get home to her kids. He attached no blame to the secretary, instead drawing a moving picture of her three children, one of whom had cerebral palsy. He maintained that the paperwork to the Federal Reserve Bank had been lost in the mail.

  The prosecution claimed that bank funds had been misappropriated to open a branch of Great Land Savings and Loan in Palm Springs, California, and further, that bank funds had been used to finance a lifestyle that would make Frank Sinatra weep with envy, including a townhouse on a golf course for each board member, a Mercedes-Benz 450 SL coupe in each garage, and ten memberships in Club Palm Springs. The recreation director of Club Palm Springs testified that various board members had, in fact, played golf, tennis or racquetball at the Club three out of every four weeks from November to March, and had the daybooks to prove it. The defense attorney protested that by 1987 there was no banking business left in Alaska. Wasn't it sensible and businesslike for responsible officers of the institution to seek out new investors where the money was? Palm Springs would be such a place. And certainly in seeking out new investors in Palm Springs one wouldn't go down to the local Y.

  The trial lasted three and a half months. A great many documents were introduced into the record concerning the laws governing money in America, most of them by the defense. The judge had to wake up on average one juror per week. In the end, the jury was unable to decide if Great Land Savings and Loan's failure was due to embezzlement of funds or just plain incompetence, and Over more and his partners had walked.

  Of course, that was Fairbanks, Kate thought. It was a byword in Alaska that if you were guilty, petitioning for a change of venue to Fairbanks was your best bet for being found not guilty.

  The next article, some two years later, announced Overmore's intention of running for office from District 5.

  "Excuse me?" she said to Heidi.

  "Yes?" Heidi hurried over.

  "Do you have a Legislative Review, going back about five years?"

  "Certainly. What do you need?"

  "I want to look up Christopher Overmore's voting record."

  There was the sound of a book dropping to the floor.

  "Excuse, please," a male voice called.

  "No problem, sir," Heidi said cheerfully, flapping a dismissive hand.

  She consulted the stacks and produced the light green paperbound books for the years required, hovered in case Kate needed help finding her way around them, and returned sadly to her desk when Kate didn't.

  Overmore had run unopposed, because you couldn't count the city councilman from Dillingham who advocated Alaska's secession from the Union, the purchase of Siberia from Russia and the formation of their own country, or the mayor of Nome, who wanted to give away condoms in the schools. Overmore was a moderate Republican who had backed rural preference for subsistence and limited sovereignty for Alaska Native tribal governments. Of course, these were safe positions to take, as the Republican Party had a lock on the legislature and there was no way either initiative would pass. Kate suspected the Republican Party allowed Overmore these radical opinions, the outward manifestation of which would keep his seat, so long as he toed the party line in other matters.

  This he appeared to do, and with enthusiasm. During the past five years in office Overmore had sponsored a bill that outlawed abortion, and when that failed, cut funding to any agency that offered either advice or monetary help to get one. He sponsored another bill to return prayer to the schools. He cosponsored a bill advocating private school vouchers, and joined with the majority in undermining the public ballot which had legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes. Every year, he sponsored an amendment to the Alaska constitution to return the death penalty for perpetrators of capital crimes. He sat as chairman of the joint banking committee, where further research indicated he favored doing away with banking controls completely.

  At least, Kate thought, replacing the copies of the Legislative Review on their proper shelf, thus earning an approving smile from Heidi, Overmore hadn't had a vision from God telling him what to do about subsistence, as another honorable--and still in office--representative of the Republican persuasion had had.

  She sat down again to review her scribbled notes. Mike Sullivan had not been one of the board members of Great Land Savings and Loan. His name had not been mentioned at trial. The only court case related to him she had found in the judicial listings was the announcement of his divorce from Judith A. Sullivan, nee Calhoun, no children, in 1995. He started Alaska First Bank of Bering in 1992.

  His backers were not listed anywhere, but Kate bet she knew one of their names.

  She looked up and caught Heidi's eye. The librarian left off arranging by date a year's worth of issues of the Smithsonian Magazine and bustled over. It was a slow day at the Bering Public Library.

  "If I wanted to know who the names of the board of directors of a corporation were, how would I find out?"

  Heidi gnawed her lip. "That depends. I'm guessing you don't have a copy of their latest annual report."

  Kate was smiling back before she realized it. "You're guessing right."

  "Are they publicly or privately owned?"

  "I don't know." Kate reflected. "But if I had to guess, I'd say privately." A privately held company was probably less subject to public disclosure laws. Christopher Over more et al had been prosecuted
over the failure of Great Land Savings and Loan because it was publicly owned, and had to answer to shareholders. Picky people, shareholders.

  Nosy, too.

  Heidi made a face. "That makes it tougher. We've got the Directory of Corporate Affiliations and Standard & Poor's Register of Corporations, but they are both for public corporations."

  "Well, if the corporation isn't in them, at least I'll know they aren't public."

  Heidi brought out the volumes, and Kate looked up High Seas Investments, Ltd., Northern Consolidated Seafood Distributors, Inc., and just for the hell of it, Alaska First Bank of Bering.

  The bank was the only one listed, in Standard & Poor, and the only officer listed was the chairman and chief executive officer, one Michael Sullivan. It very helpfully included his address, which amounted to a post office box and a zip code.

  "Hey," Carroll said. She was looking out the window of Zarr's office.

  "What?" Casanare said, coming to stand behind her.

  They watched Kate come down the steps and turn right toward the airport, Mutt trotting ahead of her, nose to the ground.

  "What's she doing in the library?"

  "Maybe she's checking out a book," Casanare suggested.

  "Which book?"

  "Max--"

  She glared at him. "Al, I don't care if First Sergeant Jim Chopin thinks Kate Shugak sits at the right hand of God. She's been consorting on a regular basis over a period of at least two months with a known member of a group of foreign criminals we are currently investigating for the smuggling of weapons into this country. I want to know what she's up to."

  "She went into a library, for crissake, she's not robbing a bank."

  "Al, she fits the profile. She's a loner, she has a problem with authority, she's got enough cause to hold one hell of a grudge against the system. She has to be reminded of it every time she looks in the mirror."

  "She's a woman."

  "So because all domestic terrorists so far have been men, that means there will never be a woman who likes to blow people up?" Casanare was silent, reluctant to endorse Carroll's theory of sexual equality in serial bombers, and Carroll pushed her advantage. "She's got a hundred and sixty acres out in the middle of nowhere to do whatever the hell she wants to on. You've seen the pictures, you've read the reports. She could hide a factory out there if she wanted to. She could hide an army out there if she wanted to." "You just said she was a loner."

  "Quit playing devil's advocate and look at the facts. We've got an incoming shipment of material crucial to the manufacture of an explosive nuclear device, ten of them, for all we know a hundred. It's sitting on a boat on board which Kate Shugak was cordially invited two days ago, from which she was escorted by none other than the man we believe is Ivanov, a point man for the Russian Mafia and a known smuggler of illegal weapons. And she fits the profile."

  "What's she using for money? Who's backing her? She can't be going into this alone, not financially, anyway." Carroll smiled, knowing she had him. "We've got any number of extremist groups with a toehold in Alaska.

  Could be one of them, or a consortium, maybe with groups in Montana or Idaho or both. Crazy loves company." She looked over his shoulder and purred, "Well, well, well. Look who I see."

  Casanare turned and saw the former General Armin Glukhov, late of the sovereign nation of Russia, trot down the steps of the library and head in the direction of the docks.

  Carroll looked at Casanare, eyebrow raised. "Any more objections?" "Not hardly," he said.

  She went to the door and said over her shoulder, "Leave Zarr a note to come find us when she checks in." Heidi looked up as the two agents entered the library, which was empty by then of everyone except her.

  "Hello. May I help you find something?"

  Casanare spoke first. "I'm Al Gonzalez, Miss.--" He smiled.

  Heidi blushed. "Call me Heidi."

  "Hi, Heidi. This is my friend, Maxine Casey."

  "Hi, Maxine." "Hello." Carroll's eyes warned Al to get on with it.

  "You're not from Bering, are you?"

  "No," Casanare said regretfully. "We sure aren't. Nice little town, though. Different than anything I've ever seen."

  "Really? Where are you from?" Casanare grinned and said in an exaggerated southern accent, '-us." "Really?" Heidi said again. "I've never been there." She sighed. "Never been much of anywhere Outside, except Seattle."

  "Now there's a great town."

  "Any town that puts a troll under a bridge can't be all bad," Heidi agreed, and they laughed together.

  By this time Carroll had sidled into the reference area. To her acute disappointment, everything was neat and tidy. She prowled over to the fiction area. A copy of a novel was lying on the table. Carroll picked it up. Harold Robbins. She seemed to remember that this particular book was supposed to be a broad fictionalization of the life of Howard Hughes. Who cared? She put the book back down. ' you the truth, Heidi, we were supposed to meet a friend here." Casanare made a show of looking around.

  "Oh? Who?" He smiled at her again. "Her name's Kate. Kate Shugak. You seen her?"

  "Yeah, you just missed her, she was working in the reference section."

  "Alone?" Heidi raised her eyebrows, and Casanare said hastily, "We were going to meet another friend. All of us were going to meet here. To work on our project together."

  "Well, he must have forgotten, because she was here alone."

  "Really. Darn, I thought I saw him coming down the steps. Too far away to catch him."

  "No, Ms. Shugak was here alone. Oh."

  "What?" Casanare said hopefully.

  "You must have seen the Russian gentleman."

  "Yes?"

  "He was reading in the fiction section, at the same time she was in the research section."

  "Oh. They weren't together."

  Her brows knit. She was getting suspicious. "No. They never spoke."

  "Really. Darn." Casanare scratched his cheek thoughtfully. "We have kind of a project going on--"

  "Oh, you were working on that, too?" Heidi said, too affably.

  "Yeah, that report on--" He paused hopefully.

  Instead, she gave him a considering look. "Which project did you mean?

  Ms. Shugak was working on two."

  "I'm not sure." Again, he paused.

  "Take a guess." She waited. He filled in no blanks for her. "You know, you're too old to be a college student."

  "So is Kate," he pointed out.

  "Yeah, but I know her, or at least I know of her. I don't know you.

  What, specifically, can I help you with?"

  Casanare looked at Carroll and shrugged. Busted.

  The Super Cub had broken a seal on the way back from Atmaukluak, much to Baird's loud and profane annoyance, and when Kate got back to the airport they were just loading the engine onto the Here. Also on board were a Kwethluk cop, his wife and three children who were moving back to Nebraska, the mosquitoes and the muktuk too much for them, and two thousand pounds of smoked king salmon, produced by a local Native cooperative sponsored by the Native association and destined for Anchorage, where it would be packaged and resold at quadruple the price.

  It was the real stuff, too; long, dark red strips of hard, smelly fillet. Kate's mouth watered. The sharp end of one piece had broken through the plastic wrap-Baird's bellow made her jump. "Oh yeah, fine, now you show up, after all the goddamn work is done! Where the hell have you been?" "Out," Kate said. "What are you bellyaching about? My shift doesn't start until midnight."

  "But you've always been here before!" Baird sounded aggrieved.

  It was true. Since her arrival in March, she had always been there, ready to be rousted out to turn a hand to anything that needed doing.

  She had been wounded when she arrived, almost mortally. The only way to subdue her own pain had been to work, morning, noon and night. She'd objected to the hiring of another roustabout, for fear it would leave her more time to feel.

  What had changed?r />
  She met Jim Chopin's eyes over Baird's shoulder, and repeated, "My shift doesn't start until midnight. I'm going to grab a few hours sleep before then. ', all."

  At midnight she loitered deliberately in the bunkhouse, waiting for Jim.

  The hands crept round on the clock, five after, ten after, and for a while she thought he wasn't coming. He'd probably apologized to Zarr, who certainly deserved one, and had been rewarded for his pains. Chopper Jim, reverting to form.