The Tipping Point: A Wainwright Mystery

by Walter Danley

“Thanks for the support, Stacy. I appreciate your comments.” To change the uncomfortable subject as quickly as possible, he turned to Tommy and said, “Stacy used to be Lacey’s roommate, before she became a professional news anchor, broadcasting stories to one and all about my police activities, that is. Now I am her roommate, and as a part of that trade, Stacy has agreed to help us solve this problem, if we can.” Turning now to face Stacy, he said, “So, Ms. Simpson, how have you been spending your morning?”

  “Well, it didn’t start as early as I’d planned. Greg flew up last night, so I was a little tardy getting in this morning. Shame on me. The division chief will take points off for that. But since I am the division chief, well…I’ll just let it slide.”

  Stacy told the two SoCal guys she was pretty sure she had recruited Greg into the tangled web of what they were planning. “Greg is in a similar position, as an FBI SSA in the Sac office, as I am at SEC. He is a Supervising Special Agent and has some flexibility in how he spends his time. This deal fascinates both of us.”

  “What, misery loves company, is that it?” Smiling, and for Tommy’s benefit, Wainwright explained, “Stacy talked to Greg about our suspicions. Greg Mulholland is her significant other. They are cursed with another of those bi-coastal romances that seem to be most attractive to women who live in Boston.” Turning to face Stacy again with a large smile, he said, “Lacey tells me you two are very good together, when you get to be together, that is.”

  Returning his smile, she said, “Oh she did, did she? I’ll have to admonish Ms. Kinkaid about telling stories out of school! Must be that new broadcast job she’s doing. Moving on, let’s see, I’ve gotten records on the principals of CapVest from the IRS, as well as those from this office. You guys draw some pretty hefty paychecks, don’t ya? Anyway, I’ve collected a lot of data, but until I can go over it and make some sense of it, no conclusions or suggestions yet.”

  Tommy asked, “Do you have a guess how long that will take?”

  “No, but I’ve just got the weekend to do it. I’ve got to be back in my office on Monday, Tuesday latest. Big doin’s in Beantown for the Feds next week.”

  “How about I call Jules and see if he’d host all of us at Incline Village this weekend? Getting everyone together allows us to get everyone’s views out on the table. It’ll make it easier come up with our plan of attack. Jules can lend a historical view and you and Lacey will get both background and overview from everyone. What do you think?”

  “Would it be acceptable to ask Greg to join us in Tahoe?” Stacy asked. Receiving the okay from Tommy and Stacy, Wainwright picked up the phone to call Jules Jarvis.

  Twenty-one

  “Crooked cards and straight whiskey, slow horses and fast women.” ~ Kenneth Rexroth

  SATURDAY—NOVEMBER | Jules and June invited the three couples to spend the weekend at the Castle. June’s household staff prepared the ballroom with tables and chairs to accommodate the crowd descending on her private Shangri La. The ballroom was the size of a gymnasium and occupied most of the Castle’s lower level. The lake view was to the southwest. It dominated the room through a wall of French doors opening to a large flagstone terrace.

  The first snowstorm of the season blanketed the beach in a fluffy white cover. The Jarvises’ Golden Retriever, Annie, did not like snow. Her passion was leaping into the lake after a tennis ball. Snow on the beach kept her cooped up in the house, which Annie found unacceptable.

  The Jarvis guests arrived together in a rented SUV at their grand home on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe. The group flew into Reno from separate locations and drove together the forty miles up the mountain to Incline Village. After coffee and Danish in June’s large country kitchen, Annie Six led them downstairs to begin the marathon effort to save Capital Vested Corporation from the mysterious scourge of murder and fraud that threatened.

  When everyone was seated at the table, Stacy thought to loosen the group tension. “Jules, I just love your dog. Annie is so socialized. How old is she?”

  “She’s about four. Her AKC registered name is Anniversary Six, but that’s such a mouthful, we just call her Annie Six. I gave June the puppy on our sixth wedding anniversary, so that explains the name. We remember her age based on how long we’ve been married.” Hearing her name, Annie gave a deep-throated acknowledgement from her bed in the corner. Everyone laughed at the woof.

  “Let’s talk about the rip-off,” Wainwright said. “Since we’re good with the fraud evidence, which should be our first thrust, okay?”

  “We’d be willing to trade going public with the fraud data if the crooks paid back the funds,” Tommy said.

  They discussed the many issues for some time, then Tommy summarized. “Our primary goal is to keep CapVest operating and the company and employees untarnished. We need to stay in business and keep our reputations from being discredited in any way. In a perfect world, we’d be able to return the stolen funds to investors so no one would ever know, but I view that as a secondary consideration.”

  “Sweetie, if just sayin’ it could make it so,” his wife said, with her hand on Tommy’s back.

  Saturday was a spectacular Lake Tahoe sunny winter day. Around noon, with a break in the discussion, Jules challenged anyone interested to take a walk along the lakeshore. “Put on some boots. The snow’s not deep, but the sand is wet and you’re going to sink some.”

  June and Jules stayed to supervise lunch preparations. The group paired up on the narrow stretch of snow-covered sand. Lacey and Wainwright followed close behind Stacy and Greg, who were attended by Annie Six. Greg was sure Annie knew Stacy’s brace made her worthy of special attention. So did Greg. As was his fashion, he paid particular attention to Stacy. She appreciated his help to walk on the snowy sand and leaned on him in her effort to stay balanced. It seemed to the others that they had a lot of mutual support

  “It was so nice of Jules and June to host all of us up here. I can’t believe their place. It is a castle, and what a setting. They must have two hundred feet of shoreline in front of their house.”

  “Actually, Jules told me the beach we’re walking on is state property. If you combine the state lots with theirs, the shoreline frontage is well over four hundred and fifty feet. You may have noticed there is no parking on the road in front and no pathway access to the beach. A typical bureaucratic operation. The state bought the beach for public use, but never provided access so the public can use it—so Jules and June use it,” Wainwright said.

  “Opportunities are never lost; someone will take the ones you miss. How long have they been here, do you know?”

  “I do. They built this beauty seven years ago. Not too bad having exclusive use of so much shoreline, is it?”

  Lacey, ever inquisitive, asked, “Is that building at the end of Jules’ pier a garage?”

  “The answer would not be nearly as impressive as seeing it. I’ll take you out to the boathouse on the way back. After construction of the Castle was finished, Jules had a boat broker search the country for the beauty in there. He shipped it here from Wisconsin on the Great Lakes. You know how he likes to flaunt his wealth, right? Jules has never told anyone what that boat cost him.”

  “What’s in there, the Titanic?”

  “What’s in there, my love, is a 1946, seventeen-foot long, mahogany Craftsmanship Deluxe Runabout, serial number R17–0001. It is the first one built of that design. And it is all Jules. He is very proud of it and will talk to you for hours about its history. He could write a book about that speedboat, he loves it so much.”

  “Tommy mentioned you’re writing a book. What’s it about?”

  “No, not a book. More like a stack of notes. They’re just reflections on people and deals I’ve been close to. No great shakes.”

  Tommy and Shirley walked behind the others a few paces. Tommy asked, “Shirley, what are your thoughts about what’s been discussed?”

  “Wow, you want my thoughts? That may be the first time in fifteen years.” She clasped her hands
together and looked skyward. “Oh, please, Lord, point me to the altar! I must pray and give thanks for this miracle.”

  “Cute, Shirl. It was a simple question. Want to participate in the discussion or not?”

  “First, let me tell you, if you haven’t already figured this out, Lacey and Stacy are both very smart ladies. I love it when women take men by the hand and lead them to where they wanted them to be in the first place.”

  “Oh, so that is what’s been goin’ on up there? Some kinds of woman’s lib holdover from the sixties?”

  “No, my masculine mountain man. What’s been going on up there is a collaborative effort to solve a serious problem. Maybe our representatives in Congress should take notes. My advice is you men should listen carefully, consider softly, and collaborate tenderly with what these women have come up with.”

  Jules had been pacing the room in deep concentration. “Look, I know these guys well, and the one way we’re going to accomplish our goals is to have a bigger hammer.”

  “The hammer we need is a plan to blackmail them into complying,” Wainwright said. “We might be able to make the fraud go away and get this situation back where it belongs.”

  Lacey grimaced. “Can’t we call it something other than that? Blackmail is a felony. How about we call this idea the alternative plan?”

  Wainwright looked at the assembled associates and shrugged his shoulders. “Always a lawyer!”

  “Seems to me that would be handing the conspirators a ‘get out of jail free card’,” Greg said. “And if you believe the murders are part of all this, then they’ll have to pay for that as well.”

  Stacy turned to face the others. “We’ve been talking about the criminal aspects. Lacey and I think we know how to force the perps into submission.”

  Lacey picked up on her thread. “Okay, let’s look at this. What muscle does the SEC use with offenders? They impose monetary fines on the guilty, along with prison sentences, license revocation, and all the other stuff. But if we blackmail…sorry, if the Bellevue Five—let’s call ’em that since it’s faster—if the Five were to accept the alternative plan, we could force them to make full restitution, add some cash to represent the imposed legal penalties, plus a healthy dose of interest, and we’ve got a meaningful apology to the investors. That’s got to be a significant number, right?”

  June said, “You want the fraud to get undone, as if the crime never happened. I get that, but how are the defrauders punished? We agree they should be punished, right? But, HELLO...they won’t cooperate with the alternative plan if they have an additional punishment price to pay for their wickedness, so how does that work?”

  Lacey looked around the table at the confusion on display. “Thoughts? June is correct. Are there any gung-ho male action plans that will answer the little lady’s questions?” Lacey scanned each of the four men in the room, hoping for an inspired statement from one of them. Lacey turned back to June, next to Jules. “Like Jules said, for the alternative plan to work, we need a bigger hammer, a credible threat. It’s time you all heard from Stacy. What she has in mind and been working on is indeed a very large hammer.”

  Stacy stood up at the table and said, “I want to introduce you people to RICO. That’s an acronym for a criminal prosecution, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. RICO was enacted a few years ago by Congress. It is a powerful tool designed to be used against the mob, but it occurs to me that you’ve got an RICO case, open and shut. Here, let me quote something.” Stacy read from an SEC document:

  THOSE FOUND GUILTY OF RACKETEERING CAN BE FINED UP TO $25,000 AND SENTENCED TO TWENTY YEARS IN PRISON PER EACH RACKETEERING COUNT. IN ADDITION, THE RACKETEER MUST FORFEIT ALL ILL-GOTTEN GAINS AND INTEREST IN ANY BUSINESS GAINED THROUGH A PATTERN OF “RACKETEERING ACTIVITY.” RICO ALSO PERMITS A PRIVATE INDIVIDUAL HARMED, BY THE ACTIONS OF SUCH AN ENTERPRISE, TO FILE A CIVIL SUIT; IF SUCCESSFUL, THE INDIVIDUAL CAN COLLECT TREBLE DAMAGES.

  “Now, let me try to explain their motivation for agreeing to the alternative plan with you guys. Let’s assume there were thirty properties involved in the fraud and let’s further assume the fraud continued for three years, or thirty-six months, okay?”

  Tommy interrupted. “Stacy, there were considerably more than thirty properties and the fraud lasted approximately five years, but go on. I’m just trying to keep everyone up to speed on the actuals.”

  “Thank you, Tommy. We will fine-tune the numbers before this is done. But, for now, use these assumptions by way of example. We’ll prove the actuals in court, or be prepared to, at least.”

  “We won’t know the exact number of properties involved or the timeframe of the fraud until we complete the audit,” Lacey said.

  “Yes, it’s being done by my staff in Boston as we speak, but it won’t be finished until next week. From what Tommy said, my assumptions are on the low side. Okay, based on these assumptions, that would be one thousand eighty counts of fraud; thirty properties times thirty-six months, so multiply that by twenty-five thousand…anyone have a calculator? What is that, twenty-seven million dollars? Is that right? That’s the money each of them would be fined. Take that number of counts, one thousand eighty times twenty years, and that, boys and girls, is how long each conspirator will spend in a Federal penitentiary. It’s called the rest of your natural life. RICO will bankrupt each of them, and then RICO will put each of them in Federal prison forever. Think about it. Do you see you have some major league advantage here? That, my friends, is your big hammer.”

  Jules was quiet while Stacy talked. He cleared his throat. “With the real-world threat of RICO, we are bound to implement this alternative plan. They have no other options. Either they agree to the alternative plan, or face the punishment of RICO. Our idea is simple. They pay back the fraudulent funds and leave the company. They walk away or retire, whatever we tell the business press. Each of the bastards exits our life and goes away…with nothing. Believe me, I know how debilitating that can be, and I didn’t leave with empty pockets.”

  Taking notes for Tommy, Shirley looked up and asked Stacy, “How are you going to spend time on this and not get in a bunch of trouble with your bosses in Boston?”

  “I thought a lot about how I could work with you, but keep the work product out of the system. The first thing that occurred to me is it is the nature of bureaucracy to eliminate free thinkers. These are the people they need the most, in reality. Well, they missed me so far, so here is my free thinker’s rationalization.

  “If you guys walked into my office and gave me what evidence of fraud and conspiracy we now have, I’d have a team on it immediately, okay? My team and I would prepare for prosecution, so all I’m doing now is completing the work early. Most of the work product will be mine, not staff, and a good part of that work will be done on my own time. My boss usually doesn’t get involved until the case is filed and ready for prosecution, so he’ll neither know nor care. If our alternative plan is rejected by the Bellevue Five for some reason, the file is ready for the courts. If they accept our alternative, I’ve wasted a tiny bit of government’s resources. I figure the SEC will have a very good deal, either way. And besides, I’m a senior officer, and much of this would be my call anyway.”

  “So, we recover the money they stole, plus penalties and interest, and distribute that to the investors. After that, we tell the bad guys to take a hike, leave CapVest,” Shirley said. “It sounds really powerful. Can we make this happen?”

  Lacey said, “I think there’s a very good chance they’ll go for it. They have the best legal counsel in Seattle. They’ll advise them to accept, rather than risk an RICO conviction.”

  “We still have the murders to deal with. What about those? We’re not letting them get away with murder. The guilty ones must pay for Robert and the others—just as soon as we figure out which of the Five is the one,” Tommy said.

  Lacey, attentive to this comment, spoke again. “As Stacy and I are the only people with prosecutorial experience, allow
me to make a suggestion from a law enforcement point of view. This alternative plan has to be done in two phases. The so-called ‘blackmail’ is Phase One. It’s easier, anyway. We have the advantage of Stacy’s RICO business. The SEC will not officially know anything about Stacy’s work unless they reject the alternative. In that event, we bring in the government and file the RICO action she has prepared. This will be the fastest Federal filing in history if we have to go that way.

  “The murders are more of a logistical problem. We continue to investigate and gather evidence while Phase One is carried out. We need evidence which we can hand to the three district attorney’s offices: Aspen, Chicago, and Sacramento. All will prosecute the case in their jurisdiction.”

  Greg cleared his throat. “I guess you all thought I was here this weekend just to be a pretty face.”

  “Not hardly!” Lacey and Stacy shouted as one.

  “Your experience as prosecutors was local. Allow a Federal agent to correct your statement. The murders occurred in three states, which puts it under the FBI’s jurisdiction. The current dictum from the Hoover Building is for agents to use personal initiative to rid the country of crime. On the same covert basis that Stace is doing her stuff, I can use FBI resources in preparation for an interstate homicide investigation.”

  “So we make it two phases. After we get the bums to pay up and walk, we spring Phase Two, handing over the guilty guys to the FBI, together with the evidence,” Lacey said.

  Wainwright was proud of her. She was a brilliant lawyer masquerading as a supermodel.

  Tommy asked Jules, “You’ve been pretty quiet through all of this. Have some strong feelings about your former partners? Any thoughts about this?”

  “Only one: I want to be there when you kick the cockers in the crotch.” Everyone in the ballroom stood and gave Jules Jarvis a standing ovation. Annie Six stood on her bed in the corner and barked her approval of the plan.