The Tipping Point: A Wainwright Mystery

by Walter Danley

  “Man, would I like to be the paint on the wall in there right now,” Wainwright said.

  “Garth, I happen to be in charge of the wall paint today. Please come this way,” Mulholland quipped.

  Wainwright noticed that Mulholland had put his arm around Stacy’s waist as they walked. It was more intimate than just helping her with the brace on her leg. That motivated him to walk close to Lacey and hold her hand. It felt good to him, and she accepted the gesture in kind. “Stacy pulled that off perfectly, don’t you think?” Wainwright asked.

  “It couldn’t have been better. Those crooks bought every word she said about RICO. They know they’ve been had. Of course, you and Tommy won’t be the most popular guys in that tower back there. How are you with that?”

  “You know, for fifteen years I almost worshiped Arnold. He was my personal hero, and I admired his ability to strategize a transaction so it was foolproof. He was the most cerebral person I’ve ever encountered. Somewhere along the line, that all changed. Doubtless, it was the drugs. I told Tommy the same thing not long ago. The drugs were the tipping point. I’m sure that was when it all went haywire. One thing for sure, perpetrating a fraud is clearly not the CapVest Way.”

  Everyone followed the FBI agent as he headed toward a white van. As they caught up with the others, Wainwright saw the van’s sign lettering was for Kirkland Lock and Key, with a local phone number beneath the name. Wow! These guys do it up with a big ribbon.

  Mulholland led his posse to the sliding door on the driver side. The vehicle blocked the view of the group from the office building windows. He knocked a code and the door slid open. A man wearing headphones was sitting at a control station next to the door inside the van. They saw it contained reel-to-reel tape recorders, headphones, and other electronic equipment on wall racks along the opposite side of the truck. Mulholland introduced the technician. “Everyone, this is Special Agent Dominic Stratos, the best Greek the Bureau has. In fact, he’s the only Greek in the Sacramento office, where he heads up audio/visual resources. His help on this case continues to be invaluable.”

  Stratos didn’t speak; he was listening on the headphones plugged into a turning tape recorder. Mulholland stood and waited for several minutes until the technician removed his headphones and addressed his colleague. “We got some good stuff. They’re going to lunch now, but talked a good bit to the lawyers about RICO, penalties, and incarceration, that kind of thing. Hey, maybe you all should get into the van until they clear the parking lot.”

  Stacy and Lacey got into the front seats, and the three men sat on the carpeted floor. Stratos occupied the single stool. It was warm inside the van and smelled of body odor and salami. The back door windows were one-way black out, so they could see most of the parking lot clearly.

  Hockney and Arnold left the building and got into Hockney’s Seville. The Caddie exited the lot, turned south toward the bridge, and was out of sight. Agent Stratos put on his headphones, activated a second tape recorder and listened. Next out of the glass doors were Ragnar Borstad and Bennie. Borstad got in his rental car and followed Hockney’s car south. Bennie’s Mercedes also turned south. Stratos turned on two additional recorders. He flipped a toggle switch among the recorders, listened through the headphones and smiled.

  Mulholland asked, “Where is Meyer?”

  “He’s still in the conference room with the lawyers,” Stratos said. “We have a bug in there, so we’ll pick up everything they say. He just told the lawyers Borstad dreamed up the fraud scam and he’s sure Borstad was responsible for the murders of the partners.”

  Agent Mulholland pulled another headphone off the peg and placed them on his head. He also smiled. Tommy Shaw was quiet while the cloak-and-dagger stuff went on. He looked across the van at Wainwright as Mulholland was smiling. “Yeah, what’s up with this electronic gear?” Wainwright asked.

  The two FBI agents didn’t respond, but Stacy did from the front seat. “We put bugs in the conference room and on each of them. We didn’t know if they’d stay and talk or leave the building, so everyone was wired. They’re recording the conversations from each of them now.”

  “How the hell did you pull that off, Stace?” asked Tommy.

  “Very Special Supervising Special Agent Mulholland…” She flashed Greg a big smile. “…accomplished that as he handed out the summons. In addition to his public service, he also performed some modest magic straight out of a Michael Connolly thriller. A little sleight-of-hand work on his part. Really, Greg is a very good close-up magician. I should know; he’s been pulling the wool over my eyes, so to speak, for more than a year now. I guess I’ll have to marry him to keep him honest.”

  “Most of the bugs are under their jacket collars. I saw one go under Bennie’s pocket flap, but they are all wired for sound,” Lacey offered.

  “Well, I’ll be,” Tommy exclaimed. “So what are they talking about?”

  “Oh, not much that’s new,” Agent Stratos said, “but they are confirming everything Borstad told you in Denver, maybe with a bit more acrimony in the details. It would appear they all blame Borstad for this trouble. They made comments like, ‘He started the fraud in the first place.’ ‘Borstad got all of us into this conspiracy by his actions.’ ‘Why did he have to blow his cookies to Wainwright?’—stuff like that. He’s not a particularly popular person with this group right now. Maybe we should swoop in and arrest him for his own protection. Nothing from Bennie; of course, he’s alone—nobody to talk to.”

  “Bennie has never needed another person present to talk a lot,” Wainwright joked. He asked Special Agent Stratos, “Is anyone else talking about the murders?” Mulholland pulled off his headphones. “We need to sort this out with a time-stamped transcript for each recording, but it seems Hockney and Chaplain are saying Meyer or Borstad did the killings. Borstad is on his car phone and just told someone he wants no part of the rest of them. He says he thinks Arnold is responsible for the murders.”

  “So either none of them know who did the murders, or someone is vying for Stacy’s Oscar,” Tommy said.

  “But can any of that be used in court?” Lacey asked.

  “It couldn’t if we were going to court,” Stacy said.

  “You won’t be making any court appearance on this case. They want to get an agreement signed for your plan ASAP. They’re going to crawl all over each other to be the first to accept,” reported the FBI technician. “Looks like you guys have yourselves a deal.”

  Wainwright turned to Lacey and said, “It seems to me these people are like an old onion. They rot from the outside, one layer at a time.”

  The time was twelve minutes after noon Friday morning in Century City when Wainwright’s intercom buzzed. “Garth, you’ve got a conference call on line three with Ms. Simpson in Boston. Tommy and Lacey are already on the call.”

  “Hello, everyone. Hi, Stacy. As I recall from past visits to Boston, three o’clock Friday was always the start of the weekend. What are you still doing there, girl?”

  “I thought you’d all like to know I got four phone calls from your partners in Bellevue and one from Denver. All of them have agreed to the plan. I just finished proofing Lacey’s well-constructed agreement and faxing it to the Five as we speak. They should execute and fax back notarized originals before my five p.m. deadline. I’ve insisted they specify FedEx for Saturday delivery. Then we start the weekend and the celebration.”

  Tommy said, “You have done a Herculean job on this, Stacy. I don’t know how we’ll ever be able to thank you for your contribution. The words “Thank You” seem so inadequate.”

  “I told you guys she was a terrific roommate, didn’t I?” Lacey said. “Thank you may be inadequate, but, Stace, thank you for coming to our aid and making all this work out.”

  “Hear, hear,” Wainwright said.

  Twenty-three

  “Reproach is infinite, and knows no end So voluble a weapon is the tongue; Wounded, we wound; and neither side can fail; For every man has equ
al strengths to rail.” ~ Homer

  FRIDAY—DECEMBER | Three of the Bellevue Five walked into Herb Meyer’s office after ten in the morning, seven days following the signing of the SEC settlement agreement. The Bellevue Four/Fifths were together to confirm all required funds had been deposited into the specified bank account. The amount returned to the funds was twenty-five million dollars. CapVest investors had been robbed of sixteen, with interest and penalties amounting to another nine million; the money was deposited in the auditors’ trust account, pending a special distribution to investors.

  Arnold took a chair in the corner. He questioned the others in a quiet voice. “Have any of you gentlemen had contact with a person who calls himself Dallas?”

  No one spoke for a long time, and then Bennie said, “Yes, I did a while ago. Why do you ask?”

  “I’ll tell you why I asked, Ben.” Now Arnold raised his voice slightly. He moved to the front of the chair—flexing his fingers to a beat only he could hear. “Our lily-livered partner in Denver, you know who I’m talking about—the one who spilled his guts to that champion asshole named Wainwright—well, Borstad explained a man named Dallas gave rather specific instructions about our operations. This mysterious person represented himself as ‘my personal envoy,’ which, of course, he certainly was not. Whatever he said to Borstad was enough to persuade him of my association with him. He admonished Borstad not to discuss the meeting with me or anyone else. He said I wanted a ‘Chinese Wall’ between us, never to be acknowledged. So Ben, what was your contact with Dallas, without your usual bullshit, if you don’t mind?”

  “Well, he didn’t profess to be sent by you, if that’s what you mean. He told me he represented one of our large pension fund investors and he was here to see me in an unofficial capacity. Our conversation was to help him in providing a due diligence report to the pension fund board. That’s all.”

  Now with more anger, and his face flushed bright pink, “The hell, that’s all! What did he tell you or you to him? I want to know all of it, damn it!”

  “Arnold, calm down. You’re going to give yourself a stroke.”

  Arnold was angry. More than just angry, he was livid. None of them ever witnessed Chaplain like this, and no one liked it. His face had gone from its normal pasty gray to a bloody purple. Bennie was sure he’d soon see facial capillaries bursting.

  “The information I gave him, Arnold, was the same stuff our press office prepares for the media, nothing more than that, and I don’t appreciate being yelled at by you.”

  “Well, good for you! You finally did something positive to earn the fortune you take out of here. Okay, who else met with this imposter?” Arnold angrily continued the group interrogation.

  Meyer shifted in his chair and said, “I did. There were several phone conversations with him and a few face-to-face meetings.”

  “Terrific! Our new president makes his mark. Tell us, genius, where did the meetings take place?”

  “The last one was out in the boondocks, a park outside of Kirkland in the hills. I forget the name.”

  “And did he convince you he came from me?”

  “Yes, he did. He had so much information, I bought the story completely.”

  “Christ! And I thought you were so damn smart. You stupid little pup. How could you be taken in so easily? Whatever made me think you possessed a worthwhile brain in that head?”

  Meyer sat silently, but his laser-like stare at Arnold could have melted steel. Chaplain seemed to be unaware of the rage his wrathful behavior was causing, or maybe he just didn’t give a damn anymore. Meyer spoke then, intending to lessen the tension in the room. “Arnold, do you have any suggestion regarding the ‘retiring’ provision in the agreement? That is what we’re here to discuss.”

  “Let me paraphrase Rhett Butler here… Frankly, I don’t give a damn, Meyer.”

  Hockney just couldn’t accept his old friend’s behavior. “Arnold, this is not like you at all. What’s gotten into you? Where is your humility?”

  “Hold it!” Arnold almost yelled, pointing a finger on the end of his outstretched arm at Hockney’s face. “I want to finish this so-called Dallas business. I will be happy to respond to your dumbass question when I am through. What did you discuss with him, Meyer?”

  “Because I thought he was sent by you, I didn’t question it too much. The main subject was how to do the earn-out structure. The benefits to our business an’…that’s about it.”

  “What did you begin to say? I want all of it… now!” Arnold’s face flushed purple-red.

  “Dallas pointed out if we structured the earn-out in such a way that the merged firm kept property management, aah…it would…keep Borstad from significant growth at All Cities. That’s all.”

  “That’s all? Well, well, well. I’m so proud of you, Meyer. Takin’ one for the team. You’re a greedy little fucker, aren’t you?” Turning to Hockney, Arnold said, “Humility? Was that your question, Ed? Well, I’ll tell you where it is. All of my humility was just deposited in the auditors’ trust account. Did you have to borrow money to make your contribution? No? Well, I did. I borrowed it from our tenant, upstairs on the twenty-second floor. I’ll tell you where my humility is, you pompous ass. It’s gone, that’s where it is. Just fuckin’ gone!”

  “Hold on, Arnold,” Hockney continued. “I’ve had about as much of your demented attitude as I can take, and I don’t appreciate your behavior. In fact, I seriously resent it. One should keep his words both soft and tender, because tomorrow he may have to eat them.”

  Meyer added, “Maybe you’re not feeling well, Arnold, and should go home and rest.”

  “Jesus, are you people on the same fucking planet as me? This is the end of everything. I’m tapped out, and we’re about to walk away from our source of income, as well as put our reputations in the crapper. I can’t go home, you twerp. I don’t have a home. And I don’t feel like resting, Meyer. What I feel like is kicking the shit out of someone. How ’bout I start with your fat Jewish ass, heh. How would you like that, Meyer?”

  The room fell into shock, gawking at the shell that once was Arnold Chaplain. Hockney had enough of Arnold’s attitude and the self-indulgent anger. He turned around and walked quickly away from that poisonous place.

  “Have the rest of you lamebrains read the agreement the bitch lawyer forced us to sign? We need to decide who will first resign, and the timing for the others. And, we have to keep all this from our employees, investors, vendors, and the media. Christ, we can’t even tell our wives, according to her agreement. Of course, I’ve got you guys there. Here I sit—no wife, no company, no money, no income, and not a goddamn pot to piss in. How do you fine fellows think I feel?”

  Bennie’s mouth hung slack-jawed. Arnold was his partner for more than fifteen years and never had he heard him raise his voice, let alone swear like a sailor. This was way too much. Staying here was belittling and he refused to be a part of it.

  Arnold continued sitting, forearms on his thighs, leaning forward in Meyer’s visitor chair while Meyer stayed behind his desk. As Bennie prepared to follow Hockney out of Meyer’s office, ashamed of his association, Meyer rose and stood in front of Arnold. He looked down at the man he so admired and wanted more than anything to emulate. Arnold sustained his gaze at the floor—obviously a trait picked up from Vida—but he didn’t acknowledge Meyer. There was a tear at the corner of the younger man’s eye as he shook his head in disbelief. He couldn’t give voice to his feelings, so Meyer turned and left the bitter old man alone in the empty office.

  BJ was at her desk trying her best to work. The loss of their longtime boss put the whole department into a blue funk, her even more so. Some of the accountants assumed her depression was a personal loss, that perhaps she and Keating were more than co-workers. That wasn’t true, of course. They had a terrific working relationship. No, it was more than just a working connection. BJ had become good friends with Keating and his wife, Caroline, so, yes, you might say it was a great person
al loss to her.

  This morning, a new face was in Keating’s office when she got to work. He came out and introduced himself. “Good morning. I am Neal Patrick Hardwick, the new CFO.”

  He said he’d been CFO at the Burke firm in Boston. When CapVest merged with Burke, Hardwick stayed, rather than move to Bellevue. He worked for Burke’s outside accounting firm so his family could stay on the East Coast. A headhunter offered him the CFO job at CapVest, which was enough inducement for him to relocate his family.

  BJ was depressed as well as feverish. Her stomach was upset and she felt light-headed. This was the wrong day to be meeting her new boss and Hardwick was the wrong guy to be him. She tapped once on his door and went in.

  “Neal Patrick, I’m very sorry, but I don’t feel well. I need to go home and get over the bug that’s going around. If you need anything, Karen can take care of it for you. I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go now.”

  Neal Patrick hadn’t said a word as BJ turned on her heel, strode out the door, shutting it firmly on the way out.

  She left the building and headed south, away from her condominium in Kirkland, and took the approach to the 520 bridge. The other end of the longest floating bridge in the world was a few minutes from her Seattle destination. She parked in a city garage a few blocks away from the small apartment on University Street. The building had no parking facilities and the curb was full.

  He had given her a key. She was sure was a good sign. Maybe he was already here. She unlocked the door and entered the small but tastefully furnished pied-à-terre. He wasn’t. It looked like he hadn’t been here for some time. Neither had she, actually, what with Keating’s funeral and all. When was it? So much was going on lately. Oh yes, she thought, the last time was a few days after Garth told me he wanted an exclusive relationship with Lacey. Right. That’s not what I wanted with him. The broad from Boston had hooked him. Sheila in legal told me she moved in with him down in LA. Well, good luck, lady lawyer. Wainwright is a handful, but probably worth it if you’re into commitment and all that.