The Fitzgerald Ruse (22 page)
“You want my account number and password? Fine. It’s in my shirt pocket along with the code for whatever you found in that chest.” I pulled out a folded sheet of paper and handed it to Hernandez. “But it’s not going to do you any good. Like I said, my money’s legit, so when the FBI asked this afternoon if they could put a flag on the account, I said sure. Now every transaction is monitored and intercepted.”
Hernandez’ face darkened. He looked up at Calvin. “You stupid, arrogant bastard.”
“He’s bluffing. He’s making it up, just like he made up his Fitzgerald ruse.”
“Right. I’m bluffing.” I scooted backwards and swung my legs in the van, lifting my prosthesis with both hands and pushing the release button while Hernandez and Calvin glared at each other. “You know your account number, Hernandez.” I pointed at the laptop screen. “Bet you double or nothing Calvin’s got the wire transfer already programmed for a different account.”
Hernandez started to climb past me, his attention focused on the computer.
“That’s enough out of you,” Calvin growled. His hand whipped to his shoulder holster.
With my left hand, I yanked my prosthesis free of my stump and with my right grabbed the Kimber that had been digging into my flesh.
But Calvin’s eyes were on Hernandez. The big man crawled up in the van with his gloved gun hand grasping the door. Too late he saw Calvin’s pistol level with his head.
The gunshot roared like a concussion grenade. Hernandez flew backwards into the open air. As Calvin swung his automatic toward me, I fired three shots as fast as I could—one for Ed, one for Charlie, and by God one for me.
I crawled to Nakayla. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, and tears of relief spilled over her cheeks. I took a corner of the duct tape and peeled it off her lips as gently as I could. She started to speak, but I silenced her with a kiss.
After a second, she yanked her head back. “You idiot. Check that they’re dead.”
“Okay, and then we’ve got to move fast.” In the spill light from the van, I could see that half of Hernandez’ head was blown away. Calvin’s eyes stared at the roof of the van and blood seeped from underneath him. Gravity pulled it from his body as at least one of my shots had stopped his heart.
I returned to Nakayla. She was struggling to free her hands, but the duct tape had been wound many times around her wrist. I went through Calvin’s pockets and found a buck knife. The keen blade quickly severed the tape.
“You know more about computers than I do,” I said. “Look at that screen. It should be ready for a routing and account number to transfer the funds.”
She bent over the keyboard. “Yes. There’s a To and a From prompt.”
“Good. Copy the To account information onto the From blank.
She stared at me in disbelief. “You’re not serious?”
“Damn right I am. Whose money is it? A corrupt Iraqi government’s? The FBI’s? If we could return the stolen artifacts and gold that would be one thing, but we can’t. So let’s make sure something good comes of it.”
I slid out the van door, balancing on one leg. The sheet of paper lay under Hernandez’ arm. I hobbled like a three-legged dog to the dead man’s side and grabbed it. Nakayla took it and then pulled me up next to her.
“Enter our account information and then if you don’t see an exact amount in Calvin’s, try for total balance. We don’t have much time. Surely neighbors heard the shots and must have called the police. If you’re successful, try to delete a record of the transaction.”
She typed in the numbers as fast as she could. A pull-down menu gave a “Balance” option, and she clicked the “Transfer” prompt and reclicked the “Confirm Transaction” safety. A green line grew across the bottom of the screen as from some unknown location money flowed as electronic bytes of information. A chime sounded and a window popped up. “Transfer Complete. 2,345,750 USD.”
Nakayla turned to me. “Holy shit.”
Sirens sounded in the distance.
“I’ve got to call Efird. Otherwise we’ll raise suspicions. Is this transfer program resident on the computer?”
Nakayla studied the screen. “No. I think it’s linked to some server that they logged into.”
“Then log out and clear the browser records.”
For the next thirty seconds, Nakayla went through a series of keystrokes until the normal desktop screen appeared. “Done,” she said.
I slid back from the computer and picked up my forty-five. “Get behind me.”
When she was flat against my back, I aimed the Kimber at the center of the keyboard and fired.
“For the record, let me get this straight.” Detective Newland smiled amiably, but his eyes held an intense curiosity. “You really didn’t suspect Calvin Stuart until Nakayla spoke to you on the phone?”
He sat across the table from me in interview room three. His nephew Al stood in uniform at the door. In another room, Detective Efird and Al’s twin brother Ted held a similar conversation with Nakayla. I wasn’t worried about our stories matching. Nakayla had been cool enough to warn me while Calvin pressed a gun to her temple. She could handle Efird.
I glanced at the wall clock. Nine-thirty. Newland had arrived about twenty minutes earlier. He’d looked tired but excited, eager to close two homicides in a day that started with a colonoscopy, a fair bargain for any cop.
“That’s right,” I said. “When Hernandez put her on, I thought Calvin had been taken with her. But she emphasized timing, that it didn’t fit. They probably thought she was urging me to hurry. After Hernandez gave me his ultimatum and hung up, I realized what Nakayla meant by the emphasis on her words. ‘They have the two of us’—there were two captors. ‘He’s in a bad way’—linking Calvin and bad. ‘Timing is critical. Like Tuesday’—the phrase most likely to catch their attention but she pulled it off right under their noses. I understood the timing had fit for Agent Keith’s Tuesday night alibi. He couldn’t have been in Asheville. Yet Calvin was in Asheville when he shouldn’t have been. He’d told me he’d flown in that night and come straight to my apartment, but no flights could land.”
I took a second to rub my forehead and recreate my mental processes. “I started thinking about other timing, how Calvin was sick the day we were hit by what we thought was a random insurgency attack, and how he knew exactly what you’d take to purge your colon, the very symptoms that got him in the infirmary. Timing coincidences started to add up.”
Newland nodded. “He was the third guy. You were right that they hadn’t pulled someone off you when Hernandez killed Ethel Barkley. Calvin tailed you under the guise of protecting you.”
“I’m convinced Calvin betrayed everyone.” I paused, remembering Ethel Barkley’s lament that there was no crime worse than betrayal because a betrayal has to involve trust, even love. I don’t know how you define love among soldiers who wear the same uniform and risk their lives for the same flag, but I’d trusted Calvin. So had Ed and Charlie, and he’d sent them to their graves.
Newland jumped in. “He was in a position to play both sides against each other.”
“More than that. He’d come from prison administration, the perfect place to work favors for Iraqis who could bribe their way out with offers of stolen valuables. I figure he hooked up with Hernandez and Lucas, who worked outside the military and answered to no one. But when Calvin betrayed them, he needed a fall guy. You’re looking at him—only I’m not supposed to be alive.”
Newland leaned forward. “Did he come to Asheville to kill you?”
That question had been gnawing at me. Calvin had tried to kill me in Iraq on the day Ed and Charlie died. And he wouldn’t have wanted his partners to have the chance to interrogate me. Why hadn’t he just shot me?
“Yes,” I said. “But Calvin had to go through the motions of trying to get back what he’d told Lucas and Hernandez I’d stolen. I think he placed that first call to me to rattle my cage and see what I’d do. He was probably already in Asheville. Unfortunately, I got Ethel Barkley’s lockbox out of the bank and that set a chain of events in motion.”
Newland seemed satisfied, but then he scowled. “How’d he get into your office?”
“Using a skeleton key or picking the door lock would have been no problem. He had the tools. You saw the sophisticated listening devices. When he bugged our office, he learned about Ethel Barkley’s five million dollars, and he thought he held a lockbox that was a key to a treasure. Once a thief always a thief.”
I shifted on the hard chair. My stumped throbbed where I’d bruised it on the Kimber wedged in the socket of my prosthesis. I couldn’t tell Newland the real reason Calvin kept me alive. He’d learned about my offshore account and assumed it held the three million dollars from by parents’ wrongful death suit. Once a thief always a thief.
“He and Hernandez staged that attack Tuesday night so Calvin could rescue me. He hoped to gain my confidence. It was a plan he could sell to Hernandez and Lucas, because they thought he’d learn where I’d stashed their money.” Another thought occurred to me.
Newland looked up from the legal pad where he’d jotted a few notes. “What?”
“When we were chasing Lucas in the Grove Park Inn, Nakayla said he looked up and smiled at her.”
“He saw Calvin.”
“Coming down the stairs behind Nakayla. So Lucas went for me because he thought Calvin would take her out.”
Newland sighed. “Talk about being in the catbird seat. If you killed Lucas, that was one less partner to deal with. If Lucas killed you, well, maybe Calvin lost the way to your money, but Hernandez and Lucas then had no way of knowing he ripped them off.”
I yawned and stretched my legs under the table. A knock sounded at the door, and Efird entered.
“You two still jawing away?”
“About done,” Newland said. “Just a couple things I don’t understand.”
I felt my stomach turn but kept my face frozen in what I hoped passed for idle curiosity. “What?”
“The computer we found. What were they going to do with it?”
I shrugged. “They didn’t say. Probably wire money out of my Wachovia account. Hernandez demanded I bring the number and Calvin knew about the lawsuit settlement.”
“And you shot it?”
“I guess so. Things happened fast. I knew I had to goad Hernandez into thinking Calvin would kill him too. When they went at each other, I grabbed my pistol and started firing. The first shot went wide because the gun got hung up on my prosthesis.” I looked at Efird. “Nakayla probably has a better idea of what happened.”
Efird and Newland exchanged glances and the younger detective sat on the edge of the table. “That’s basically what she said. Too bad. There was a lot we could have learned from that computer.”
I shook my head in sympathy. “Maybe Keith can get the FBI techs on it.”
Again Efird and Newland looked at each other. Newland folded his arms across his chest. “We haven’t called Keith in yet. I’ll leave that overture to Chief Buchanan, and I wouldn’t want to disturb the Chief till in the morning.”
The detectives didn’t want to lose control of their case. Given the international and military connections, Keith would swoop in like an avenging angel snatching up everything he could lay his hands on.
“I see. Well, I think Calvin’s missing button ties him to Amanda Whitfield’s murder. But we don’t have to build a prosecutorial case, and I’m convinced the description of Ethel Barkley’s attacker and the white van make Hernandez good for her death.”
“Except for one thing.” Newland uncrossed his arms and drummed the fingers of his right hand on the table for a few seconds. “Where’s the lockbox? That would nail both murders to your Ali Baba conspirators.”
“If you could keep it away from the FBI.” I met Newland eye to eye. “Things have a way of turning up. Maybe they left it in a motel room. I assume you’re searching for where they stayed. Or you’ll find it in Calvin’s rental car.”
“Calvin said there was something that needed deciphering,” Efird said.
“And Calvin said a lot of things to keep me hooked. I think he was baiting me to confide in him as to what else Ethel had of value. He’d heard about her five million dollars through the office bug and assumed the lockbox was a key to more.”
Newland nodded slowly. I couldn’t tell if he was buying my line or confirming to himself that I was holding back.
“Why Nakayla’s car?” he asked.
I hadn’t told Newland about Nathan and our ruse that went so wrong. A quick call from the van had alerted him to clear out and play dumb, because I didn’t want Efird and Newland to know we’d gone around them. So, why Nakayla’s car? It was a good question.
I gently massaged the flesh above my prosthesis. “Damn leg. Her car’s easier to get in and out of. It’s lower. Once I figured out a way to stash the Kimber in the socket I knew walking would be painful.”
“Lucky she left it,” Efird said. “You were sick, huh?”
“Yeah.” I smiled at Newland. “Sympathy pains. I decided to stay in and rest in case something broke later in the day.”
“And Nathan Armitage sent a driver since you and Nakayla wouldn’t be riding together,” Newland said.
“She objected, but I didn’t want to take a chance. Guess I screwed up because when Calvin came to the office this afternoon and said I’d called him to bring her home, she went willingly.”
Newland flipped his legal pad closed. “Okay. I guess that’s almost everything for now.” Another quick glance at Efird. “You know, Sam, how cops are always being second-guessed by their superiors?”
“Yeah.”
“Since Nakayla’s car is technically part of the shooting scene, we really should go over it. Do we need a search warrant?”
“It’s not my car.”
“But you were the last driver. I’m just asking.”
I looked up at Efird. “If it’s fine with Nakayla, it’s fine with me.” I turned back to Newland. “You’re not hinting I should get a lawyer, are you?”
“Oh, God, no. I wouldn’t wish a lawyer on my worst enemy. Especially a lawyer like Hewitt Donaldson. Imagine having a confidential relationship with that asshole.”
I got the feeling I hadn’t fooled the old fox for a second.
Hewitt Donaldson came to his back door wearing a pair of cutoff jeans and a purple Hawaiian shirt. I was surprised not to hear Jimmy Buffett wailing “Cheeseburger in Paradise” in the background. For three o’clock in the morning, Donaldson’s eyes shone bright with fire. He waved Nakayla and me into his kitchen, but I stopped at the threshold and held out a dollar.
“I want you to represent Blackman & Robertson as well as Nakayla and me individually. We may have broken the law and need to have the protection of the attorney-client privilege.”
He snatched the bill from my hand. “Don’t expect any change.”
I went back to my CR-V parked in his driveway and unloaded the lockbox. In the spill-light from his house, I could see his expression transform from curiosity to amazement.
“But how?” he sputtered. “The news showed the shot-up van and Nakayla’s car surrounded by police. I thought they would have confiscated everything.”
I set the lockbox on his granite kitchen counter with a loud thud. “And I couldn’t tell you any differently when I called. I don’t trust cell phones. Sorry it was so late, but we couldn’t retrieve it until the vehicles and bodies were removed.”
“You had time to hide this?” He ran his hand over the chest’s surface and picked at a severed piece of a swastika arm where the lid had been jimmied open.
“I didn’t.” I nodded to Nakayla. “She ran down the path to a canoe I’d seen by an old picnic table and slid it underneath. She got back to the van just as the first patrol car pulled in.”
“You were hiding evidence,” he said.
“Of a burglary. And who’s going to be charged for the crime? Nakayla and I’d been hired to deliver this to your Aunt Ethel, but I’m afraid we’re a little late.”
Donaldson wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “Well, let’s see if we’ve got anything to be worried about.” He reached forward to lift the lid.
“Wait. There are some things I need to tell you. First, Detective Newland suspects I have it.”
“What?” Donaldson pivoted so fast his bare feet squeaked on the floor. “And he let you leave with it?”
“He didn’t know where it was, but he figured out I’d taken it. He even hinted I should hire you.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, but for God’s sake don’t tell him I said so.”
Donaldson shook his head in disbelief. “Maybe I’ve underestimated my old nemesis. Why would he do that?”
“I think because the eager beaver boyfriend of your paralegal would love to get his hands on it, and then none of us would see it again. Newland’s betting I’ll come clean if there really is evidence he should see.”
Donaldson bit his lip as he thought the situation over. “And I have a feeling that’s one of your conditions for this little present.”
I didn’t answer yes or no. “Have you talked to Agent Keith?”
“No. We were supposed to get together this week, but with my aunt’s death, the funeral arrangements, and the shooting at the Grove Park, I’ve put him off.”
“Detective Efird pulled him in for questioning because I thought he was following us. He was. To save himself the embarrassment of having his superiors learn he’d been busted by the local police, he told us he’d been doing you a favor.”
Donaldson turned cagey. “Favor?”
“Yes. When I used the phone in your office, I saw the file on the Selected Minutes from the House Committee on Un-American Activities.”
The color rose in Donaldson’s cheeks.
“You have my word I didn’t look in it, but I may have led Keith to believe I knew more that I actually did.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That you wanted information on the government’s investigation of the Silver Shirts. More specifically, anything about your father.”
Donaldson’s blood pressure lowered. “So. Why are you telling me this before I open the box?”
“Context—because I haven’t looked in it. What Keith wants to tell you is that he’s found evidence that your father was working for the FBI. He’d been recruited as soon as Pelley hit Asheville.”
Donaldson trembled so violently I thought he might be going into cardiac arrest. He tried to speak but the sound stuck in his throat. Nakayla took his arm and her touch calmed him.
After a few seconds, he said, “He wasn’t a fascist?”
“No,” I said.
“Why didn’t we ever know?”
“I imagine Congress in the 1930s was the same leaky sieve it is today. They consider secrets as only currency to be spent. Keith said it took a lot of digging in the FBI files because any documents about the true identity of your father were kept away from Capitol Hill. That could be why he was never called to testify.”
“And Aunt Ethel and my Uncle Terrence?”
“I don’t know. I suspect they were believers in Pelley’s movement.” I looked at the chest on the counter. “You said your aunt adored your father. She went to great lengths to protect something she mistakenly thought he valued. I just wanted you to know that however unflattering or even vile those contents might be, your father was one of the good guys.”
Donaldson’s eyes glistened. “A good guy who put his wife and son through hell.”
“Who knows what might have been,” I said. “By the end of 1944 the tide of the war had turned. Had your father lived he surely would have emerged from his double life. I think the son became the lawyer the father would have been.”
Donaldson swallowed hard and patted the back of Nakayla’s hand. “Then let’s examine the evidence.”
He stood between us. Dry hinges squealed as he lifted the lid. We saw my folded sheet of legal paper lying on top of a pile of items. Donaldson picked it up. “This looks new.”
“I worked out a possible code based on what your aunt told me. Nakayla hid it in case the police searched me.”
“Code to what?”
“I don’t know, but Calvin suggested this box might contain something that needed deciphering. We now know he wasn’t speculating.”
He handed the sheet to me and then removed a roughly eighteen by nine inch rectangle half covered in ripped, yellow-tinged wrapping paper that was once white. He pulled free a picture frame whose back had been pried loose. A dust jacket for
The Great Gatsby
stuck out from the top as if someone had partially removed it. A woman’s disembodied eyes and lips floated in a night sky over a brightly lit amusement park. The image was strangely haunting. Strangely modern.
“The gift,” Nakayla said. “The one the summer lover gave Fitzgerald and he gave to Ethel.”
In the lower right corner of the front flap were written the words: “To my darling Scott. No novel can capture my love for you. Beatrice.”
Donaldson laughed. “If I remember your deal correctly, then here’s your payment.”
I took the framed book cover and set it aside.
A manila envelope with “Fitzgerald” penciled across the front was the next item. Donaldson pulled out a sheaf of papers covered in handwriting. There was no title or numbering to the pages. He flipped through them quickly and we saw blocks of words crossed out.
“Hmmm,” Donaldson muttered. “I don’t think this is a story. More like notes.” He passed a few pages around.
I didn’t know Fitzgerald’s work enough to understand what I was reading.
“This section is like a true confession,” Nakayla said. “He’s going on about the sense of futility and the inevitability of failure.”
“‘The Crack-Up,’” Donaldson said. “That was the name of an essay he wrote for
Esquire
that came out in the spring of 1936. A mea culpa of his despair. The irony was that by lamenting his mental collapse, he proved he could still write.”
“This is what your aunt felt guilty about taking?” Nakayla asked. “Some notes for an essay?”
“Ethel saw things differently,” Donaldson said. “These rambling reflections must have destroyed Pelley’s hope that Fitzgerald could be enlisted as a voice for his cause. Not exactly the fervent rallying cry equal to ‘The Silver Shirts Are Marching.’ But Ethel read the pain and anguish underneath. She would have thought it a betrayal to make this public. Even seventy years later. Yet I’m sure she couldn’t bring herself to destroy a raw view into Fitzgerald’s soul.” Donaldson collected the pages, slid them in the envelope, and dropped it behind the chest.
Next he pulled out a thin file folder closed with a rusty paper clip. The tab read “Pelley vs. the State of North Carolina.”
“That’s the case where your father was one of the defense attorneys,” I said.
“Yes. But this should be much thicker.” Donaldson extracted only two sheets of paper. The first was an invoice from his father’s law office for $10,500 of itemized charges and expenses for the case. The second was a receipt from The Pollosco Life Assurance Society for a single premium of $10,500 paid on a permanent life insurance policy with a term rider.
“There’s the money trail,” Donaldson exclaimed. “His legal fees. The rider probably bought term insurance with dividends to increase the face amount over time.”
“So Ethel’s money is clean,” Nakayla said.
“No. It might not be a Nazi payoff, but it’s dirty.”
“Why?” Nakayla asked.
“Because my father was Pelley’s attorney, and he was spying on him for the FBI. How could he take money from a man he was supposed to be representing while betraying him?”
“Does that mean your father didn’t do the best job he could?” Nakayla asked. “The court records showed Pelley was charged with sixteen counts of stock fraud and related offenses. His defense team got thirteen dismissed, and of the three remaining that went to the jury, he was convicted of only two and received a suspended sentence. I’d say your father did his job well.”
“The law is based on principle, not the circumstance of success.”
“So he distanced himself from his earnings,” I said. “And in uncertain economic times, he kept them as a last resource for his family. Would you rather he be a fascist?”
Donaldson studied the documents in the file. “No. But my share of the money will be a resource that I can feel good about. Amanda Whitfield’s quadriplegic husband needs a lifetime of medical care. I’ll guarantee he has at least two and a half million dollars worth.”
I looked across Donaldson and saw Nakayla smile. We’d made nearly two and a half million dollars in our first week as a detective agency. With Donaldson’s gift to Amanda’s husband, we’d be splitting our take two ways instead of three, giving an equal share to the families of Ed Cuomo and Charlie Grigg, the men who’d come home in body bags because of Calvin’s betrayal.
Donaldson set the file aside and pulled a ledger book from the bottom of the chest. On the cover, a scarlet capital L had been painted in the center of a silver oval.
“The insignia of the Silver Legion of America,” Donaldson said. “And there’s a matching book underneath this one.” He set the first volume on the counter and opened it.
The pale green lined pages were filled with letters and numbers. None of the words made any sense. Donaldson flipped from page to page. Occasionally a heading would be sandwiched between two blank lines, but that too was unintelligible.
“This would have driven them nuts,” Donaldson said. “I can see why they came after my aunt.”
I unfolded the matrix of letters I’d created from the underlined sentence in Ethel Barkley’s copy of
The Great Gatsby
. “Turn to the first page.” Across the top line appeared
LONNOX JD—EIPOR
. “Have you got something to write with?”
Donaldson fished through a kitchen drawer for a pen. I ran down my columns, converting each letter to its equivalent.
PELLEY WD—CHIEF
Donaldson clapped his hands. “By God, you figured it out. Chief. That was the title Pelley’s followers used for him.”
“Sounds a lot like Führer,” Nakayla said.
Chief. The nickname Calvin had chosen for me.
Donaldson looked at me with undisguised amazement. “How the hell could you do that without knowing what you were decoding?”
“The clues were in your aunt’s book, her copy of
The Great Gatsby
that the police have.”
“You mean your copy. I’ll work it out with my cousin to make sure you get it.” He pointed to a header in the middle of the next page. “See what this is.”
TNTHTVT
transcoded into
ALABAMA
. Under it,
TSOYW YHM
became
AKERS RBT
.
“I’ll bet it’s the name Robert Akers,” Donaldson said. “The next lines are probably his address.” He placed his index finger under the number 150000 written to the right of the name. “And this must be his contribution. I’d say it’s $1,500.00 without any decimal point.”
“Pelley’s whole organization,” Nakayla said. “Laid out state by state.”
“Ethel kept it ready for him,” I said. “And she thought the money was part of the deal. But Pelley’s condition for a pardon was no political activity, and he never came back to Asheville.”
“Are you going to give this to Agent Keith?” Nakayla asked.
Donaldson shut the ledger and dropped it back in the lockbox. “Hell no. What would the FBI do with it except create pain for families whose loved ones are either ancient or dead and buried. The past is hard enough to escape without the government throwing it in your face.”
Can you ever escape your past? I thought. Mine had come back with a vengeance and left a string of bodies in its wake.
Donaldson turned to a cabinet behind us and pulled down a bottle of Glenfiddich single malt scotch. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a shot.”
“It’s late,” I said, and looked to Nakayla. She’d had the worst of the ordeal—kidnapped, bound, and gagged.
“Maybe a short one,” she said. “I read somewhere a good detective never turns down a drink.”