“All right.” Ortiz placed both hands atop the thick stack of papers and announced that she was now going to share some information with us, information that had previously been withheld.
“If I give you some additional facts,” she explained, looking at me, “there’s always a chance you might remember more from that time.”
Swallowing hard, I glanced at Maddee and then gave the detective a nod. “Okay. Let’s hear it.”
The woman extracted several official-looking documents from the file, reports of some kind but with a lot of words crossed out in thick black marker. After glancing through them for a moment, she flipped them around and placed them on the desk in front of us.
Leaning forward, I started to read but was stopped by the header across the top. It featured a logo, a gold badge with an eagle on it, followed by the words United States Secret Service.
CHAPTER TEN
Nicole
Wait, what?” My head jerked up in surprise. “Secret Service? What is this?”
Suddenly, I understood why Nana’s knee-jerk response was usually to call a lawyer. Things could come out of the blue and just smack you upside the head without any warning!
“The United States Secret Service?” Maddee repeated. “The guys who protect the president?”
Ortiz nodded. “They do protection, yes, but they’re also the ones in charge of financial crimes, such as fraud, securities, and counterfeiting. They came into the picture once we tracked down Taavi’s car to a chop shop owned by a known syndicate. That changed the parameters of the investigation and led us to a federal case that was being worked at that time. We were able to obtain some information, though much of it has been so redacted that it’s not all that helpful for our purposes.”
Maddee and I looked down at the pages and saw immediately what she was talking about. On some, the thick black lines covered so much text that there was barely a full sentence. Other pages had been left alone, however, including the one on top, which was a summary of the contents. It identified the subject of the documents as “Operation Paper Trail,” the dates of investigation as March 1992 to September 2004, and the primary crime as counterfeiting.
Counterfeiting?
Next came a summary of the case that ran for a good fifteen pages, followed by a variety of memos, emails, letters, reports, and more. The summary was dry and detailed, so I started skimming through, searching for the words “Talbot” and “Koenig” but spotting neither. I assumed if the names were there, they were probably among the parts that had been blacked out.
“Was Taavi a Secret Service agent killed in the line of duty?” Maddee asked, ever the innocent optimist. I’d been wondering the opposite. Considering he was in such dire financial straits, my thought was that he’d become involved with the counterfeiters somehow and ended up getting killed for it.
“No, Taavi wasn’t with the Secret Service,” Ortiz replied. Then, as if reading my mind, she added, “Nor was he involved with the counterfeiters as far as we can tell.”
“What about our grandfather?” I asked. Was it possible that he had been a Secret Service agent?
“His situation is a little more… complicated.”
Maddee and I shared a concerned glance as Ortiz continued.
“I’ll try and explain the information we were able to glean from all of this, but it needs a bit of explanation first. Do you have any money on you? Just a paper bill, any denomination.”
Maddee took a ten from her wallet and held it out.
“No, you keep it. Touch it. Run your fingers over it and rub it and pinch it and tell me what it feels like.”
My sister and I did as instructed, feeling a little silly.
“I don’t know,” Maddee said finally. “It just feels like money to me.”
“Me too.”
“Exactly,” Ortiz said. “It feels like money because the paper that money is printed on is unlike any other paper in the world. Only money feels like money, if that makes any sense.”
We both nodded as Maddee returned the bill to her wallet.
“Money has become a lot more high tech, starting as far back as 1996,” Ortiz continued, “but prior to that, the biggest hurdle facing any aspiring counterfeiter was simply how to replicate the paper money is printed on.”
She went on to say how, unlike other paper, which was made of cellulose from trees, the paper for money, called rag paper, was made from a blend of cotton and linen fibers. “The formula is well known among papermakers and law enforcement officials. In fact, the fastest way to get busted for counterfeiting is to try and place an order for rag paper that’s seventy-five percent cotton and twenty-five percent linen. Most papermakers won’t even produce it because they know how it could be used.”
She explained that making matters more complicated for counterfeiters were two additional features. The paper for money contained a unique mix of tiny blue and red fibers, and that during the printing process the paper would get squeezed with thousands of pounds of pressure. “That’s what makes new bills so thin and crisp.”
Ortiz took a deep breath and then dove into more of an explanation. In 1992, she said, a certain type of counterfeit bill began turning up in various places around the country, so the Secret Service began looking into it. “What they would ultimately find by the end of what would become a nine-year investigation was a global operation that involved a papermaker in Switzerland, a printer in Virginia, and distributors in five states plus Peru, Russia, and China. The investigation was considered a success, numerous arrests were made, and millions in fake bills were seized.”
I shot Maddee another look. Was this for real?
“The syndicate was also deeply impacted,” Ortiz continued, “with a number of its chief players coming under indictment for a wide variety of related crimes.”
“So what part of all this ties in with our situation?” I asked. The story seemed over the top, and I couldn’t help but wonder when Ortiz would get to the point.
She took back the documents, flipped to one in particular, and read a section aloud, my pulse surging when I realized what it said, that surveillance was being conducted at Talbot Paper and Printing as well as at the Talbot home on Willow Lane, for a period in June and July 1995, including the date that Taavi was murdered.
Maddee gasped. “Why would they have been surveilling our grandfather’s home and business?”
Ortiz said, “That’s the problem. There’s so much redacted that we can’t be sure. My assumption is that your grandfather was under suspicion for some sort of involvement with the counterfeiters, though he was never arrested or charged, so either he got away with it or he was exonerated in the end.”
“It has to be the latter,” Maddee said.
“Unfortunately, I tend to think it was the former,” Ortiz replied. “Take a look at this.”
She flipped through the pages until she came to a receipt for a “plate presser” purchased by Talbot Paper and Printing from the manufacturer, and a second receipt for the same piece of equipment sold to a company called Greenaway Manufacturing just a week later.
“As it turned out, Greenaway Manufacturing was a shell corporation.” She pointed to the details on the first receipt, where it referred to “twenty-ton capacity.” “Twenty tons is the exact amount of pressure applied to money during the printing process.”
“What exactly are you saying?” Maddee asked.
“I think your grandfather bought this machine through his company and then sold it to the counterfeiters.”
“Why?” Maddee asked.
“Because a purchase like that would raise red flags if just anybody tried it. But a longstanding customer and international paper and printing company could order such a thing as a matter of course.”
Maddee sounded as dumbfounded as I felt. “So you think our grandfather supplied machinery to counterfeiters so they could print fake money?”
“Purely a guess.” Ortiz closed the file. “I’m sorry, girls. I’d like
to give the man the benefit of the doubt, but between the evidence we already had and the new information given to me by your grandmother yesterday, it’s not looking good.”
I finally found my voice. “It was just an argument in a parking lot. Why would that implicate him in any of this?”
Ortiz shook her head. “No, I’m talking about the other thing your grandmother told me. The phone call.”
I squeaked. “The phone call?”
“Yes.” She glanced from me to Maddee and sighed. “Looks like you haven’t heard about this.” She shifted uncomfortably. “After your grandmother told me about your revelation, Nicole, she made an admission of her own.”
Ortiz explained that on the day of the murder, when the four of us girls came out of the woods screaming about a dead body, Granddad was the one who went to call the police. Nana followed after him, but he must not have realized she was there because when he got to the phone, he made another call first to someone else before he called the cops.
“W-what?” I stuttered. “To whom? Why?”
Ortiz shook her head. “All we know is what he said.”
“Which was?”
Ortiz leaned forward. “ ‘We have a big problem here. You need to take care of it. Fast.’ ”
I was still in a daze by the time we got home. Maddee and I found parking places just a few cars apart and then headed to the carriage house together. We were starting up the walkway when we heard odd, muffled sounds coming from the direction of Miss Vida’s backyard. Pausing to look, I noticed that there seemed to be an odd glow emanating from there as well. Not wanting to snoop but needing to make sure the woman was all right, we stepped to the fence and called out to her.
“Girls? Is that you?” she responded excitedly. “Come on in. Come see!”
We swung open the gate and stepped into her yard to find, in the dim glow of twinkle lights strung along the fence, Miss Vida and her new beau, Lev, sitting in a steaming hot tub.
“What?” we both cried in unison, moving closer.
“Isn’t it wonderful? It was Lev’s idea. They just installed it today.”
We were both speechless. For a few moments, the only sounds were the gurgle of bubbles from the tub and the slurp of Lev eating a spoonful of ice cream Miss Vida was feeding him. Good grief.
“Would you like to join us?” she asked.
“No,” we both said, a little too quickly.
“Thanks, though,” Maddee added.
“Yeah, maybe next time.” I had to stifle a laugh.
“Well, feel free to use it whenever you’d like. You may as well take advantage of it.”
“Thanks,” we said in unison.
“And don’t be concerned if you hear loud noises coming from back here,” she told us. Maddee’s cheeks were already bright red when, oblivious, the older woman added, “I made sure to get one big enough for my women’s group, and when we’re together we really cause a ruckus.”
I laughed, both at my sister’s misconception and at the thought of a babbling pool of bubbes.
Miss Vida went on about the group for a bit, saying how they’d finally picked the date for their summer getaway, to which Maddee replied that that was the same weekend as this year’s Talbot family reunion.
“Speaking of,” Lev said, “how’s the investigation going?”
“About the same,” I said quickly before Maddee could respond. For some reason, I didn’t want this guy to know our business even if he would probably hear about it some other way sooner or later.
“No new developments?” he asked. Miss Vida put down the ice cream and leaned forward against the edge of the hot tub, interested to hear as well. Maddee and I glanced at each other.
“You know how these things work. Even new developments don’t necessarily lead to answers,” Maddee said, deftly evading the question. “We still don’t know what happened out in that cabin.”
“Aw, don’t lose hope, girls,” Miss Vida said. “That detective is a sharp cookie. She’ll figure it all out one of these days.”
We thanked her and made a quick exit, not speaking again until we were safely inside the carriage house.
“Is it just me,” I asked in a low voice, “or does something about that guy bother you?”
Maddee shrugged, though I could tell she was trying to be nice.
“Why is he so intrusive?” I pressed.
“Probably because he knew Granddad. Maybe he feels bad for our family and wants to keep tabs on things.”
I thought about that as I moved into the living room to put down my stuff. Maddee headed to the spiral staircase but paused before going up. “To be honest, I have had one concern.”
“Yeah?”
“I just… well, I hope he’s not after Miss Vida for her money.”
“Ah,” I replied, nodding. “That crossed my mind too the day I first met him.”
“I don’t know anything about his financial situation, and it’s not as if Miss Vida’s a multimillionaire, but she’s comfortable. And she has that beautiful home too. Now here he is, talking her into buying a hot tub… I just hope she’s being careful.”
Maddee continued up the stairs, but as she went I had a feeling we were both thinking the same thing. If our sweet grandfather could’ve been a bad guy, then anyone could.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Nicole
We ambushed Nana the very next night, showing up at her house unannounced at a time we knew she would have just finished her dinner. Sure enough, we found her in the living room, sipping tea, but then we saw that she had a visitor, a rather short, stout, balding man I didn’t recognize but whom Maddee greeted warmly.
“Nicole, this is Dr. Harold Underwood,” she said, turning toward me.
I knew the name. This was the expert in diasporas who had authenticated Granddad’s priceless Huguenot pamphlet before it was donated to the Smithsonian. I stepped forward and shook the guy’s hand. He told me to call him Harold.
Nana seemed nervous that we were there, which had been the point. We’d wanted to hear the full story straight from her and had known there would be a greater chance of that happening if we caught her off guard. Now that we saw she wasn’t alone, however, I feared this visit would be a bust.
Instead, much to my relief, as soon as Maddee and I were plied with steaming cups of tea and a plate of sweet little treats, Nana got right to the point despite the presence of a guest.
“I assume you’ve spoken with Detective Ortiz?” she asked, glancing from me to Maddee.
We nodded.
“So now you have questions for me.” Suddenly, she looked very tired. With a heavy sigh, she set down her teacup and seemed to sink into her chair.
“Don’t judge your grandmother too harshly, girls,” Harold said. “Sounds like she wasn’t the only one withholding information from that time.”
“Oh, yeah?” I snapped, unable to stop myself. “I was a traumatized six-year-old child who had just witnessed a horrific crime scene. Nana was a grown woman who protected her husband at the cost of her four granddaughters!”
“Nicole,” Maddee scolded softly.
“I understand why you’re angry, and I am sorry,” Nana said. “But bear in mind that I had no idea you had seen that man with your grandfather two days before. Still, I assure you, the secret I’ve kept all these years weighed as heavily on me as yours did on you.”
I gave a sarcastic laugh and was about to lash out again when I felt Maddee’s hand on my knee, giving it a squeeze.
“Tell us everything,” Maddee said to Nana instead. “From the very beginning.”
And so, as I held my tongue, Nana launched into her story, describing the same sequence of events we’d learned from Ortiz except with additional details such as how quickly Granddad was walking as he strode across the lawn toward the house and how, when she finally caught up with him, she was surprised to see he’d taken the time to go all the way to his office rather than make the call from the phone in the mudroom. At the
office, she opened the door without knocking and stepped inside. He was standing at the front of the desk with his back to her, leaning forward and dialing the first of his two phone calls.
She overheard that one, and then once he was on with the police, she left the room and went to get some blankets for the children, who couldn’t stop shivering.
“We weren’t cold, Nana. We were shaking from terror,” I said, unable to keep the anger from my voice.
“Well, dear, I didn’t know what else to do. They always have blankets on TV shows. They talk about not allowing the person to go into shock and all that. It was the only thing I could think of.”
“Here’s something you could’ve done,” I said. “You could’ve confronted Granddad about what you overheard.”
“Frankly, I didn’t realize the implications of it until later, when the police went out there and came back, and then everything took such an odd turn. First, the police said there was nothing there. Then you girls insisted on going back with your fathers. Then you all returned looking even more shocked than before.”
Turning to Harold, Maddee explained. “Whoever cleaned up the crime scene and took the body had staged things inside the cabin to look like it had all been a figment of our imaginations. Instead of a dead body and a knife and blood, they’d left behind a pile of blankets with a stick poking out of them and a puddle of rainwater on the floor.”
“Yes, I’d heard that part before.” His brows furrowed in concern.
“When the police finally left and your fathers all agreed you girls hadn’t seen what you thought you had,” Nana continued, “only then did I remember that first phone call. I asked Douglas about it, but he acted as if it were nothing unusual. He said he’d called law enforcement and that was that. I let it go, thinking—I guess hoping would be more like it—that he was telling me the truth. As the years passed and nothing ever came of it, I rarely thought of it again—until two years ago, when you girls showed up the morning after that year’s reunion announcing that you’d spent the night testing the cabin for blood and then giving statements at the police station.”
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