The Marlboro Man: A Moira McElvaney Mystery

by Derek Fee

  After being introduced to Moira and Carmichael, Sami turned to Shea. ‘I’ve done a PowerPoint presentation on the analysis of the documents you left with me.’

  ‘How long did the analysis take you?’ Shea asked.

  ‘I finished an hour ago.’

  ‘You mean you’ve been up all night?’ Shea asked.

  ‘Do you know how many pages there were?’

  Shea was impressed. He’d pulled many an all-nighter, but he didn’t look as fresh as Sami did at nine o’clock the following morning.

  Sami removed a tablet and a mini-projector from his satchel. He laid them on the coffee table. ‘OK, guys, it’s show time. I’m going to use the empty corner of the whiteboard as a screen. Gather round. I’m giving a lecture at noon so we have to make tracks.’

  Moira, Shea and Carmichael sat on a couch while Sami powered up the projector.

  ‘Let’s begin with what we know,’ Sami was in lecture mode. He put the first image on the screen. It consisted of pallets loaded with money. ‘What is the most profitable commodity to smuggle?’

  ‘Drugs,’ Shea replied.

  ‘Right and after drugs.’

  The three on the couch looked at each other. Sami brought up another image. It was the highly recognisable picture of a carton of Marlboro cigarettes. ‘Fake Marlboro cigarettes is a billion-dollar business here in the US. A packet of fake Marlboro costs twenty cents to produce in China and can sell for anything up to twenty times as much on the streets of cities across this country. To put it in perspective, a forty-foot container can hold as many as ten million sticks and can cost one hundred thousand dollars to produce in China. Smuggle that container into the US and it can be worth up to two million bucks. It constitutes a very attractive investment opportunity.’

  ‘If you can get them into the country,’ Moira said.

  ‘That’s true,’ Sami smiled. ‘But say that you could convince some wealthy investors that you have a foolproof method of smuggling them in, and that ancillary costs would be one million dollars per container, you would still be offering each one a tenfold return on the investment: one million dollars in return for just one hundred thousand dollars.’ He looked at the three attentive faces. ‘Who could resist?’

  Shea smiled. He had been in a meeting room with serious investors who would wet themselves at the prospect of a thirty per cent return on investment. He didn’t want to think about the effect on an investor of a potential return of one thousand per cent. If he had been in a position to make such a proposal, he would have been sure to have an emergency ambulance on standby.

  Sami brought up another slide. It was a picture of a container ship beside a map of the US. ‘That’s the core of the project that Gregory Gardiner was working on.’ He picked a batch of papers that he had pinned together. ‘These papers relate to the purchase of a container ship. As far as I can tell, Gardiner was ready to organise the purchase of the vessel himself but was gazumped by one of the investors, who saw the potential of making a bundle on both ends of the project. The vessel was eventually purchased by a Norwegian gentleman named Jonas Hovland.’

  Moira thought about the Norwegian phone calls. She would be willing to bet that the number belonged to this guy Hovland. She would check it out as soon as they were finished with Sami.

  ‘I’ve counted up to a total of twenty million dollars being collected for the project. That doesn’t mean that there are two hundred investors at one hundred thousand each. Some investors went in for five hundred thousand while a good number stuck to the minimum of one hundred thousand.’

  ‘So, how many investors do we have in total?’ Shea asked.

  ‘I counted eighty-two.’ Sami put a slide up showing the names and the investment beside each name. ‘The money was supposed to go into escrow accounts controlled by Gardiner. It was only supposed to be released when the merchandise was purchased from China. That was where the mysterious principal came in. He was the man with the connections in China and the smuggling route for the containers into the US. At least, that was what the investors were told.’

  Shea leaned forward. ‘I looked at those documents and as far as I could see the man we call Mr X had no contact with the investors.’

  ‘You got it, all the contacts were made by Gardiner. He and Mr X stood to gain millions as the middle men. Neither one invested a dollar.’

  ‘If Gardiner is removed from the scene,’ Moira said, ‘the investors have nowhere to go. Gardiner was their only connection to the money.’

  Sami smiled. ‘That’s the beauty of the scheme. Eighty-two investors stumped up twenty million bucks and the only name they have is Gregory Gardiner. It’s the perfect con. I bet the escrow accounts have been cleaned out and the money has been travelling around the world for the past couple of weeks being washed as it went. By now it could be anywhere and is probably invested in apartments in London and hotels in Mumbai. I doubt if even some of the big recovery companies could get their hands on it.’

  ‘What about the plan to smuggle the cigarettes into the US?’ Carmichael asked.

  Shea looked at Sami. ‘There were no cigarettes, right?’

  Sami finished the slide presentation. ‘It looks that way. The smuggling story was just a ruse to con the investors out of their money. They should have heeded the advice that when you’re offered something for nothing you usually end up getting nothing for something. And in this case the something it cost them was a very healthy twenty million dollars.’

  ‘But surely the investors will go to the police,’ Carmichael said.

  ‘And tell them what?’ Moira asked. ‘That they invested in a scheme to defraud the US government of tax? They’d be putting themselves in the frame for a conspiracy charge. If the smuggling scheme had been real and they were caught, they would have done jail time. We’ve been through Gardiner’s phone records and probably have the phone numbers of most of the investors on Sami’s list. We’ll call them, but I’ll bet that none of them will be willing to confirm their investment.’

  ‘Where does that leave us?’ Shea asked.

  ‘Up shit creek without a paddle.’ Sami was packing up his gear. ‘This guy Gardiner must have been one dumb asshole. He fronts for some guy that he doesn’t know and takes twenty million dollars from investors and then probably ended up getting himself killed.’

  ‘It’s another stone wall,’ Moira said. ‘And there have been a couple of those so far. We don’t have a single lead on this Mr X.’

  ‘How can we find him?’ Shea asked

  ‘Search me,’ Moira said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  A cloud of despondency had settled over the condo. Rather than sitting sulking, Moira and Carmichael had resumed filling in details on the whiteboard. They had made significant progress in understanding what Gardiner had been up to. His excitement at being the central cog in a scheme that would produce a flood of money was understandable, as was the reason that he had been removed. But they hadn’t moved one inch forward on the main purpose of their investigation – finding out exactly what happened to Gardiner. They now had a fair idea of ‘the why’ – twenty million dollars was a hell of a motivation for murder – but they were still missing ‘the how’ and ‘the where’. Moira stood back and appraised their work. They had done a pretty good job of collating all the information collected. Nevertheless, she felt they were quickly approaching the point where the towel would have to be thrown in. She couldn’t see where they could go next, even with Shea’s considerable resources. The key to everything was Mr X and there was absolutely no clue as to who he really was or how he could be found. Mr X, whoever he was, was certainly a cunning and devious man, and possibly a very dangerous man. It wasn’t by accident that there was no trace of him aside from a potential single sighting by Carmichael. The investigation was screaming to a halt. For now, they continued to ‘make work’. She e-mailed Ricky with Sami’s list of investors and the sets of phone numbers she and Carmichael had developed. She wanted to cross-refe
rence the names and the numbers. It would probably lead nowhere, but it would keep the momentum up somewhat. The alternative was a return to the back row of the lecture theatre in Harvard and she was beginning to regard that as a fate worse than death.

  On the couch, Shea was desperately going through the documents. He was also coming to the conclusion that they had reached the end of the road. He wasn’t a man to give up easily, but he was a realist. Gardiner had been a ‘straw man’ set up by Mr X to be the fall guy when the extent of the fraud was realised. He had a grudging respect for Mr X’s planning. He had covered all the bases. The money was gone and so was Gardiner. He contemplated having Ricky chase up at least two of the accounts. It wouldn’t lead anywhere, but it would at least confirm what Sami and he thought about the money being laundered and disappearing completely

  What would he do when he didn’t have the investigation to follow? He contemplated playing all the top golf courses of the world, but first he would have to learn how to play golf. Somehow he was going to have to find something that could recreate the buzz of the trading room and that was going to be no easy matter. And then there was Moira. It might be better for both of them if the investigation ended now and they were obliged to go their separate ways. However, he was going to miss her. Heck, he would probably even miss Carmichael a little.

  Moira came and sat beside him. ‘It doesn’t look great.’

  ‘It isn’t over until it’s over.’ He noticed that Carmichael had discreetly left the room. ‘If there was only some way to find this Mr X character.’

  Moira glanced at the whiteboard. ‘One thing I’ve learned is that an investigation needs momentum. If you’re not moving forward, you’re stalled and you’re in trouble. Right now we’re stalled, tomorrow we’ll be moving backwards.’

  Shea followed Moira’s gaze. She had added a print to the whiteboard, it showed a still from the video of Gardiner walking down the corridor at Miami International just before he disappeared. ‘Gardiner arrived in Miami from Caracas. I don’t find anything in the papers about Caracas. What the hell was he doing there?’

  ‘Maybe Mr Hovland knows. Gardiner was in contact with someone in Norway. It’s got to be about the ship. I was going to call him anyway. Perhaps it’ll come to nothing, but it’s the last throw of the dice.’

  CHAPTER FORTY

  M oira checked and found that there was a six-hour time difference between Boston and Oslo. It was just coming up to midday in Boston so it was almost five o’clock in the evening in the capital of Norway. She didn’t know whether the phone number she had was a personal or an office number. In fact, she wasn’t even sure it was Hovland’s number. She went online and saw that Hovland Shipping is a proper company that does most of its business servicing the Norwegian oil industry from the small town of Tromsø in the north of the country. The number for the head office in Oslo corresponded to the number Gardiner had been calling. She typed the number and listened to the electronic sounds of telephonic connection.

  ‘Hei, Hovland kantor.’ The voice was female and young.

  ‘Hello. Do you speak English?’ Moira asked.

  ‘Yes, this is the Hovland office.’

  ‘May I speak with Mr Hovland.’

  ‘And who shall I say is calling?’

  ‘My name is Moira McElvaney and I’m calling from Boston in the United States.’

  ‘Please hold.’

  There was silence on the line.

  Eventually the female came back on the line. ‘Mr Hovland wishes to know the nature of your call.’

  ‘It concerns the present whereabouts of Gregory Gardiner. I understand that Mr Hovland had some business with Mr Gardiner.’ Moira had chosen her words carefully to give the impression that she knew where Gardiner was.

  Another bout of silence was eventually broken by a male voice. ‘Miss McElvaney.’ The accent was American with a Norwegian overlay. ‘Jonas Hovland here. Do you have information concerning the whereabouts of Mr Gardiner?’

  ‘Not exactly, Mr Hovland, I’m working for Mrs Gardiner in an effort to find out what happened to her husband.’ She could hear an outflow of breath on the other line. ‘I understand that you and Mr Gardiner were in business together.’

  There was no reply.

  ‘I’m aware of the project that you and Mr Gardiner were working on together.’

  ‘Is that so? Then you must know that I am as anxious as Mrs Gardiner to find out what happened to her husband.’

  ‘You invested in his project?’

  Again no reply. ‘Who are you working for? Is it Miami PD or Boston PD?’

  ‘Neither. I’m working for Mrs Gardiner.’

  ‘Or maybe you are with the FBI or perhaps the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives?’

  ‘I’m not with any official body.’ Moira had expected a response like this but it was more extreme than she anticipated.

  ‘And I am not Santa Claus. Look at it from my perspective. A young lady I don’t know calls up and suggests that I had some business with a man who I haven’t been able to make contact with for the last month. You can perhaps understand why I’m unwilling to discuss my business affairs over the phone.’

  ‘Given the nature of your business with Mr Gardiner I can completely understand your reticence. Perhaps you can help me with one small point though.’

  Hovland laughed. ‘There are no small points where large sums of money are concerned.’

  ‘At one time Mr Gardiner was trying to buy a ship himself. How come you were the one who took over the purchase of the ship?’

  There was a guttural laugh on the other end of the line. ‘Mr Gardiner would probably have got seasick in a rowing boat. He knew next to nothing about the shipping business and I was in need of a cargo vessel myself at the time. Our requirements coalesced.’

  ‘Do you have any idea why Mr Gardiner was on route from Caracas to Miami? We have a large number of documents, but there’s no mention of Caracas.’

  ‘Hypothetically, he might have been looking for a ship. Perhaps he expected to find a ship in Caracas that would take on some container traffic for him.’

  ‘And equally hypothetically, where might that ship have been?’

  ‘Let’s say, Cartagena in Columbia.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Neither do I.’ Hovland sighed. ‘I think we have exhausted the time I had allotted for this call. Please extend my commiserations to Madam Gardiner.’

  ‘Please, Mr Hovland.’

  ‘Conflicting instructions,’ he said. The line went dead.

  Moira put down the phone and joined Shea on the couch. ‘Interesting and strange.’ She gave him the gist of the other side of the conversation.

  ‘You can’t blame Hovland for being so guarded,’ Shea said. ‘You could have been recording the conversation and the arm of US bureaucracy is long. ABTFE wouldn’t hesitate to issue a warrant for his extradition if they had proof of his involvement in a scheme to import a gazillion fake cigarettes.’

  ‘Why was Gardiner in Caracas while the ship was in Cartagena?’

  ‘Conflicting instructions. Greg expected the ship to be in Caracas, but it had been sent to Cartagena. Either port would be a jump-off point for picking up the containers from China for transhipment to the US. It must have been a hell of a surprise for Greg to find no ship and no containers.’

  ‘And no Mr X,’ Moira added. ‘Where do we go next?’

  Shea folded the papers he had been examining and put them on the coffee table. ‘Certainly not Caracas or Cartagena, that would be a monumental waste of time.’ He nodded at the papers on the table. ‘Sooner or later we’re going to have to hand those documents over to the authorities. We’ve uncovered the fraud that was perpetrated by this Mr X guy. That might count for something. But will that be the right thing for Jean and the kids? I cannot believe that Greg was so stupid as to front for some guy in a project that involved millions of dollars. He must have known that he was taking an enormous risk
.’

  ‘Money does strange things to people.’

  ‘You really think we’re done?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t see any way forward.’

  ‘By the way, I met Brendan in Cambridge yesterday.’

  ‘So I hear. He told me that he’s now a member of the team.’

  ‘He’s arriving just in time for the close-down.’

  It was time to confront the elephant in the room. ‘Brendan is worried that there’s something going on between us. And Carmichael is convinced of it.’

  ‘That explains her discreet departure from the living room. Where is she? Hiding away in the kitchen or her room?’

  Moira smiled. There was a lot more to Jamie Carmichael than met the eye. ‘I’ve worked in an organisation where men and women are thrown together under very trying circumstances. Sometimes the feeling of a common objective and the camaraderie it engenders can cloud our judgement. People think they recognise signals that aren’t there.’

  ‘I respect the fact that you and Brendan are together. If that wasn’t the case, maybe things would be different, but I have no desire to come between you.’ The words weren’t coming out right. He wanted to ask how things were between her and Brendan. He wanted to know whether there would be a chance for him. But personal relations weren’t his forte. Neither was forcing the issue.

  ‘I’m here on a sabbatical, Frank.’ She looked him in the eye. Carmichael was right. There was something between them, but it was something that was destined to come to nothing. ‘My real life is back in Belfast. I followed Brendan here because I wanted to give us a chance. I put a time limit on it and I mean to stick to that. Another relationship would only complicate the situation and I might be forced to break my word on staying here.’ She shook her head. ‘Attending lectures in criminology at Harvard seemed like a good idea back in rainy Belfast but the reality falls short. I don’t want this investigation to stop because when it does I have nowhere to go.’