by Steve Levi
“We’d like to be kept informed.” Cookie-Cutter one handed Noonan a card.
Noonan looked at the card. All it had was a phone number with a Washington D. C. area code.
“This is how you people do business?”
“We don’t advertise,” said Cookie-Cutter two. “Like I said, we’re not into theater. When you have something to say, give us a call.”
Noonan chuckled to himself. “Is there anything in particular you are interested in? As far as I know, the armored car wasn’t carrying any cash. No checks, no credit-card stubs, nothing. It was empty.”
There was a dead silence between the two Cookie-Cutters. Then number one said, “Just stay in touch.”
And they left.
As they were headed out, Swensen came in with more personnel files. Swensen acknowledged the Cookie-Cutters with a sad nod.
“You know them?” Noonan indicated the disappearing pair with a nod of his head.
“Oh yeah,” Swensen said as he shook his head sadly. “FinCEN. They’re with Treasury. They are money-laundering investigators. Financial fraud kind of stuff.”
“So they think you are laundering money?”
“Captain Noonan,” Swensen added a fake surprise to his tone, “didn’t you know? Every armored-car company in America is laundering money.”
“What does any of this have to do with a dematerializing armored car? At best, it’s a state crime. The Pamlico Tunnel is in North Carolina. So what’s the fed’s interest?”
Swensen smiled sadly. “I have three answers for you. One, I don’t know. Two, I don’t care. Three, I don’t have anything to worry about. Every cent in the holding facility,” he pointed to the wall behind Noonan and then repeated himself, “every cent in those accounts is in place, and I’ve got the audits to prove it. We don’t launder money here; we store it.”
“Then why are the feds here?”
Chapter 16
“Charlie, stay away from the window!”
“We’ve only been here a few hours, and I’m already going buggy.”
Charlie let the curtain flop back vertical and flopped on his bed. The room was hardly palatial, but then, again, it was secluded. It was a weekly rental, and if you wanted to disappear in America during the summer, the Outer Banks of North Carolina was the place to be. Particularly if you reserved your week in Paradise the previous November. Nags Head was the best of those possible places to be. Small enough to be called a community, but with so many tourist on holiday, it was more like a city. No one remembered anyone between Memorial Day and Labor Day. The perfect place to hide in plain sight.
Even better, the rented apartment faced the dumpster at the edge of a parking lot for a restaurant. There wasn’t even a slice of the ocean—or Pamlico Sound—in the distance. No “view of ” in the rental book. So it rented cheaper. And was more secluded. They had bought a week’s supply of food the day before they moved in, Saturday, and planned to hide out for the duration. The steaks were in a refrigerator along with some hot dogs and sliced salami. No ribs because they required barbequing. They were to stay indoors for a few days.
No reason to attract attention.
No beer either.
They could have all the beer they wanted in two days. Three at the most.
Then they were going to need a lot of suntan oil.
Chapter 17
“Captain Noonan?” The woman stood about five feet two, a good foot shorter than Noonan. Noonan looked up from his notes. He was about to say yes when the policewoman cut him off at the pass. “I’ve heard all the short jokes, so don’t try.”
Noonan smiled. “I’ve heard all the tall jokes, so don’t you try. Heck of a way to start a conversation.”
She smiled. “Being a cop and a short woman, you get all kinds of guff.”
“Being tall and old, you get all kinds of guff too. I guess we’ll both just have to do our job, eh?”
It brought a smile. “Chelsea Edison. From the Pamlico City Police Department. I’ve been assigned to the case. I’m the records person.”
“Records, as in files or as in recording?”
“Oh, you are card, you are. Both, as a matter of fact, when it comes to crime. For this particular case I was asked to do background on all the players in this . . . this . . .”
“Matter,” Noonan finished for her. “This matter. Well, let me thank you in advance. I need all the help I can get.”
“Well, records I can give you. Help, sorry, not so much.”
Noonan smiled. “And here I thought you were going to solve the whole case for me!”
“Right,” she snapped. “I’m the Easter Bunny on the side.”
“OK,” Noonan said, smiling. “No more jokes. What do you have for me?”
“Not much. I did background and credit checks for all the major players, the president.” She kind of turned sideways and gave her head a tilt as if pointing back toward Swensen’s office. “The four security guards, the two drivers and guard on the front gate on Sunday.”
“Why the guard?”
“He was on duty when the armored car went missing. There were only seven people on duty on Sunday.”
Noonan thought about it for a moment and then asked, “Only seven? Four security men, two drivers, and the guard makes seven. No office staff?”
“Not on a Sunday. Or, rather, not that Sunday. The armored car was empty, so there was no need for office people. When the armored cars come back on Sundays, the pickups are just put in a deposit drawer in the vault wall. There is no reason for any office or vault staff to be there on Sunday.”
“OK, I’ll go with that. Tell me about the seven.”
“Nothing important. No red flags. Nothing suspicious in terms of money. Not all of them have good credit ratings, but nothing stands out. The two drivers have the worst credit ratings and lots of bills but nothing big-time. All of them have car loans, and none of them are behind. The two Jacksons have some police reports but nothing serious.”
“What kind of police reports?”
“Marijuana possession. Not sale, just possession. Small amounts. Too small to be selling, if you want to know. As you know, we don’t spend a lot of time on users. These guys were users, not dealers.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Couple of years ago. Nothing since. No DV. No DUI. These are basically good-citizen types.”
OK, how about the president.”
“Clean as a whistle. No priors, no parking tickets, no reports, good credit rating, owns his home and car.”
“Goody for him. The guard?”
“Clean too. Mormon, if it makes any difference. Strong family man. Average credit rating. No reports and no priors. Is buying a house and car and is current on all payments.”
“You are not making my job easy, you know that?”
“My heart is broken. The four guards are different. The two young ones, Ramon and John, have an odd police report. They popped up in a gay bar call five years ago. There had been a disturbance, and they were two of the witnesses.”
“Witnesses? As in victims?”
“Not victims. Or suspects, anticipating your next question. It was officially listed as a disturbance. Today we’d call it a hate crime. A group of young men entered the bar and started yelling at the gays, calling them all kinds of nasty names.”
“I can imagine.”
“When the three men would not leave, the police were called. Before the police got there, well, you can guess what happened.”
“Yeah. What was the upshot of it all?”
“Some trespassing charges. One assault, not either of your people, and a police report to back up an insurance claim of damage.”
“In other words, everything just went away.”
“You got it, Captain.”
“Heinz, I’m Heinz.”
“OK, Heinz. That’s it for two of the security guards.”
“Where was this hate crime, by the way?”
“Long way awa
y. Chapel Hill.”
“I should have guessed. College town.”
“University town. A college is in a small town. Chapel Hill is big-time.”
“OK. Which leaves two security guards.”
“Here’s where it gets interesting but, again, no red flags. Charlie Schanche is a highly decorated veteran. But he has medical problems, psychological problems. Nothing serious as long as he takes his meds. PTSD is the modern term for it, but he’s a Vietnam vet. I guess your generation would call him ‘burned out.’”
Noonan smiled. “When it comes to crime, there is no such thing as my generation or yours. People are people, and only the terms change. Any priors or outstandings?”
“Nope. He’s clean as a whistle. Not even a traffic ticket. He has a poor credit rating but owns his own car and three motorcycles. All are old. Wife has an engineering degree and is an HVAC specialist for the school district. Been there over twenty years. She’s clean too. One divorce for her, and it was amiable. Just paperwork and done.”
“How long were the two of them married?”
“First marriage? Three years. Current marriage, if that’s why you’re asking, twenty-five years. No DV in North Carolina. Her credit rating is very good. She has a car in her name, and their house—which is paid off—is in a family trust.”
“His family or hers?”
“Theirs.”
“OK. And now Mr. Steigle.”
“He’s a peach. A lot of paperwork but, again, no read flags. No arrests, no priors, no DVs but lots and lots of divorce paperwork. Been married three times, and each of them ended in a nasty divorce. It’s his kind of paperwork that makes my job enjoyable.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, it shows me how lucky someone is to have a quality husband.”
“Steigle is not a quality husband?”
“From the court records, nope. Or, from what his exes say on the record, he was not a good boy. A lot of affairs, humiliating wives in public, lying about finances, the usually bad-boy things.”
“No violence?”
“None.”
“How’s his credit rating?”
“Good. Very good, as a matter of fact. Even with three exwives, he’s doing well. He kept his finances separate from his exes. Had prenups.”
“He was a lawyer. I’d expect that.”
“He’s still a lawyer, in the sense he keeps paying his bar fee. No complaints with the North Carolina Bar Association. He does a lot of pro bono work for them, living wills and other end-of-life stuff.”
“Seems pretty clean to me.”
“And rich. He’s the big fish in this pond. Everyone else has modest savings. Steigle is at two million. Low credit-card bills. He isn’t buying a home.”
Noonan cut in with a smile, “But he’s paying for three homes for his ex-wives.”
“Nope. Paid them off. Had a home until a year ago, but sold it. I could not find a new mortgage, so he’s got to be renting.”
“So what you’ve got me is nothing spectacular.”
“Sorry.”
“Anything else?”
“Like what?”
“Anything unusual pop up?”
“I’m not sure what unusual means. The president is a coin collector, if that means anything. Schanche is a member of two American Legion clubs, and the two gays are active in the gay rights community. The Jacksons are related to everyone on the coast, and depending on how you want to draw the related-to lines on a Ancestry.com chart, they have sleazy, disreputable cousins and nephews as well as upstanding members of the community. Take your pick.”
“Well, you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family.”
“That’s not the way I heard the saying.”
“It’s generational. My generation is so old, our driver’s licenses are written in hieroglyphics. Do you have time to do some more digging?”
“I don’t know where else to dig.”
“I’ll help. Do any of the seven have a gym membership? Are all their cars and motorcycles current with regard to registration? Do any of them have a pilot’s license? Are there any liens on any of their properties? Do they all have cell phones, and, particularly for the Jacksons, are those cell phones up and running? Do any of them have business licenses or are any of them in limited liability corporations? Do any of them have passports? Do any of them have anything to do with foam of any kind?”
“Foam? As in something frothing or as shipping material?”
“Either and any.”
“OK. Anything else?”
“Just check with the Division of Elections and see if any of them vote or have signed any petitions in the last few years. And then the troopers have a list of the vehicles that were stopped and searched when the armored car went missing. One of those vehicles had something to do with the disappearance. See if any odd items pop up from the list.”
Edison kept writing as she spoke. “This is an odd collection of questions.”
“Well, this is an odd crime.”
“I’ll get on this today. Some answers I can get quickly. Do you want the answers as I get them or all at once?”
“All at once. But I must have what you can find by, say, ten a.m. tomorrow.”
“Ten a.m. tomorrow? Do you know something I don’t know?”
“Not really. My experience,” Noonan gave him an avuncular look, “from my generation on the police force, has been such that matters like this have a tendency to wrap up pretty quickly. The armored car went missing on Sunday, and we’re at Monday afternoon. Things like this do not hang fire for a week. I’m expecting something significant to happen soon, and when it does, I want to have as much information as I can get.”
Edison closed her notebook. “Then I’ll jump like a rabbit for you.”
Noonan just smiled. “I’ll be here, so I won’t be hard to find.”
Chapter 18
Curtis Jackson, his cousin Harold, and a distant Jackson from Vanceboro did not have any trouble meeting in private. They did it in public. When you met in private, there were all kinds of problems. There were revenue agents everywhere, revenuers, and the Jacksons hated them as much as their fathers and uncles had hated them in the days of prohibition. You just could not trust the government—the government men, anyway. They never got it right and were always stepping in where and when they weren’t wanted.
Curtis did his family business in public. Usually at picnics. He’d heard the revenuers used bugs and wires. Well, they could load up his office and telephone all they wanted. He didn’t do the real business over the phone, hard wire, or cell. He did it the old-fashioned way: nose to nose.
Curtis, Harold, and Jerome socialized as they filled paper plates with North Carolina fare. Curtis was a seafood man and preferred fish and crab. That is, any kind of fish and any kind of crab as long as it was not blue. Harold was a meat eater, and Jerome a phony vegan. Jerome was a vegan when his wife cooked but a voracious steak-and-potato man at lunch. Every lunch. The three men filled their respective plates and wandered off to a remote picnic table. They all popped a beer can and sat down.
“I like the sound of this, Curtis,” Harold said as he bit into a pork rib. “But it’s right on the edge of a real problem.”
“Harold, every day in banking we’re on the edge of a real problem. There just aren’t any rules for banking anymore. Business is advancing faster than statutes. Our new, necessary practices don’t fit the mold of an antiquated legal system.”
Jerome Jackson from Vanceboro was of a different opinion. “Half of me says you are correct, Harold. But the other half of me says if we don’t move ahead of the times, we are going to get left behind. We cannot just be up to snuff on what’s happening; we have to be ahead of the power curve.”
“Up to snuff! Power curve! It’s all just hooey!” Harold was skeptical.
“OK, Harold. Let me give you a for instance. Do you remember the Y2K faux crisis?”
“Yeah.”
“What a lot of people do not know is the United States Treasury had something like thirty planes full of cash sitting on runways around the country.”
“Really? I didn’t know that. Why?”
Jerome cleared his throat. “Because no one knew what Y2K was going to do with the money supply. No one knew what glitch was inadvertently built into the banking computer systems. If, for some reason, there was a major glitch in the electronics, the banking electronics, credit cards across the country might not be accepted. Checks might not clear because of the electronics, not because there was no money in the accounts.”
“But nothing happened!”
“You’re right. Nothing did happen. But the United States Department of the Treasury wasn’t going to take a chance. Just in case the worse happened—just in case—it had plane loads of cash on runways in about thirty airports just in case something went wrong. The economy is a very fragile thing. One electronic glitch and there would be major problems from here to Alaska.”
“But nothing happened!”
“OK, Jerome, let’s try this another way. Right now, we’ve got a client with ten million dollars in cash. He wants to invest it, but he can’t use a bank.”
“This is marijuana money, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is. This client has ten million dollars of legal money. But it’s cash. He’s collecting it from sixty or seventy marijuana sales businesses in six states. The money was earned legally. What’s illegal—and I mean illegal today—is having the banks touch it. We can’t accept the money. We can’t allow checks or credit cards or debit cards to buy marijuana. Until the federal government removes marijuana from the Schedule 1 list of dangerous drugs, the money is legal and, at the same time, illegal.”
“Well, if we get involved with it, the feds are going to snag the money. Even if your client takes the money to the Bahamas, opens an account and then uses a check from the new account, it’s still drug money. Worse, it’s now laundered money.”
