The Mourning Sexton (24 page)

CHAPTER 38

T
he Hispanic receptionist gave him a perky smile. “And your name, sir?”

“Peterson.”

She looked down at the schedule sheet and nodded. “Here we are.”

She pressed some buttons on her telephone console and then spoke into the headset. “I have Mr. Peterson here. Okay, I'll send him right back.”

She smiled at him again and pointed down the hallway. “You're all set, Mr. Peterson. The third conference room on your right.”

The door to the small conference room was open. He paused in the doorway. Ruth was seated on the far side of the round table, her hands clasped in front of her on the table. She looked at him and lowered her eyes. He closed the door behind him.

“Thank you, Ruth.”

She nodded, eyes still averted.

He took the chair across the table from her.

He said, “Tell me about your contacts with Judith.”

She looked up. “What do you mean?”

“What did she want from you?”

She stared at him. The thick lenses of her glasses magnified her eyes.

“Did they kill her?” she asked.

“They?” Hirsch said.

“Peterson Tire.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Tell me.”

“I don't know.”

“They said it was a car accident.”

“That's the official version.”

“But it wasn't, was it?”

“I don't think so, but I don't know for sure. That's part of why I came to see you.”

“I don't know whether it was an accident.” She shook her head defensively. “I don't know anything about that. Why do you think I would know anything about that?”

“I don't. But if it wasn't an accident, if she was killed, then you might know why she died.”

She frowned and looked down.

“What did she want from you, Ruth?”

After a long silence, she looked up. “She wanted me to tell her about the money.”

“What money?”

“The payments. The ones for litigation costs. She knew I handled the wire transfers.”

“You worked for Donald Foster, right?”

She nodded.

“He was the chief financial officer?”

“I was his assistant.”

“What did Judith want to know about the costs?”

“How they were calculated.”

“What do you mean?”

“Most of the companies invoiced us for costs,” she explained. “Court reporters, copying companies—that kind of stuff. But one company didn't send us any invoices. She wanted to know about that one.”

“Do you remember which one it was?”

She frowned. “It had a foreign-sounding name.”

He flipped through his file to Judith's memo summarizing the costs incurred by Peterson Tire Corporation in connection with its defense of the claim of Dorothy Sanderson.

“Boudreau?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I don't think so.”

“Pembris?”

“No.”

“Felis Tigris?”

She nodded. “That's the one.”

“You say that company didn't send Peterson Tire invoices for its services?”

“Yes. Judith wanted to know how I knew what amounts to pay them.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I explained that we paid them a fee based on a percentage.”

“A percentage of what?”

“The difference between the final court award and another number we were given. It was a complicated formula.”

“What was the other number?”

“It varied for each claim.”

“Where did you get it?”

“From the law firm.”

“Emerson, Burke and McGee?”

“Right. They were our lawyers in the St. Louis case.”

“Marvin Guttner?”

Her upper lip curled in disgust. “Yes. Him.”

“His law firm supplied you with the numbers?”

She nodded.

“Where did they get the numbers?”

“I'm not sure. I think it had something to do with the total damage amount the plaintiff had asked for. It was all on a fax they would send us for each case.”

“What would you do with the numbers?”

“I'd do the calculation and then wire transfer the money. I'd always include the case number on the wire transfer form.”

“Where did you transfer the money?”

“I don't know the name of the bank. I just know it was overseas.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It had a Swift code.”

He recognized the word. He leafed through his documents until he found his printout of Judith's Outlooks Note.

“What is a Swift code?” he asked.

“It's like a bank routing number, except it's used by banks outside the country.”

“Swift?”

“It's an acronym.” She squinted her eyes in concentration. “Society for Worldwide . . . uh . . . S-W-I-F . . . Worldwide Financial Transactions. Something like that. I've done some of those transfers here, too. I'm in the firm's accounting department. We make international wire transfers to banks with Swift numbers.”

He looked at his notes. “What else did Judith want to know?”

When she didn't answer, he looked up. She had her arms crossed over her chest and she was staring at the framed railroad poster on the side wall.

“Ruth?”

She turned to him.

“She wanted to know what I'd heard.”

“About what?”

“About that company. That Felis outfit.”

“What about them?”

“About why we were paying them. About what they were doing. About what their role in the case was.”

“What did you tell her?”

She stood up and walked over to the window, which looked south beyond the Loop toward the Field Museum and the Shedd Aquarium and the waters of Lake Michigan. She stared out the window, her arms crossed below her chest.

He waited.

Still facing the window, Ruth said, “She knew.”

“She knew what?”

She turned to face him. “That's why she came to see me. She knew there was something wrong.”

“Did she know what it was?”

“She had a pretty good idea.”

“What did she think?”

“That someone was getting paid off. She thought the money I was transferring to that overseas company was part of a kickback scheme. She was pretty sure, in fact. But she needed proof. That's why she came to me.”

“Did she want you to testify?”

“Oh, no. Never. But she hoped I could help point her to the evidence.”

“What did you think of her theory about the wire transfers?”

She turned toward the window. “I thought she was right.”

“Why?”

“Because everything about it felt wrong. Especially all the hush-hush. I remember back at the beginning I once asked my boss about it.”

“Donald Foster?”

She nodded, still facing the window. “Mr. Foster told me it was strictly confidential. He told me I should never ask about it again. That I should never talk to anyone about it. He said that any disclosure by me was grounds for termination.”

“Did he tell you why?”

She snorted. “Of course not. All I knew was that the whole wire transfer arrangement was set up a few weeks after my boss attended this secret meeting with the general counsel and our CEO and Mr. Guttner. It was all top secret.”

“What kind of evidence did Judith hope you could help her find?”

“Evidence of the wire transfers.”

“Why did she think you could help her with that?”

Still facing the window, her back to him, she shrugged. “I'm not sure. She'd already talked to other people who used to work at Peterson. I think some of them may have told her I was unhappy when I left.”

“Were you unhappy?”

She nodded.

“Why?”

She turned to face him. “Because I knew there was something wrong with those wire transfers.”

“How did you know that?”

Her face was flushed with emotion. “Because everything about them felt wrong. When I tried to ask my boss, all he told me was to mind my own business.”

She shook her head angrily.

“Mind my own business. That's exactly what I was doing. I was the one they were using to carry out their plan. I was the one calculating the amounts and wire transferring the money. But I didn't know why. I didn't know whether we were breaking the law or cheating someone or what. All I knew was that I was part of something that didn't seem right. I started having trouble sleeping. I was getting depressed. I talked to my priest. I decided enough was enough. I quit.”

“Did they ask you why?”

“I told them my boyfriend was in Chicago and we were getting married.”

“That was Jason?”

She shook her head. “There was no one. I invented a fiancé for the story. I just wanted to get out of there. I thought it sounded better, less suspicious, if I was moving because I was engaged. I had a sister in Chicago. I moved in with her. I didn't meet Jason until a few months later.”

“Does Jason know?”

She shook her head. “No. And he never will. That part of my life is over, Mr. Hirsch. No one knows. Except Judith. And now you.”

He let her final words linger as he skimmed through the notes on his legal pad.

He asked, “What about the evidence Judith was looking for?”

“I'd made copies before I left the company. Secretly, of course. I brought them with me when I moved here. I put them in a safe-deposit box.”

“What were they?”

“I made copies of the wire transfers and the confirmations. I also made copies of the faxes from Mr. Guttner's firm with the numbers that I used to calculate the amounts of the transfers.”

“You had them in your safe-deposit box?”

She nodded. “Judith wanted to see them. I told her I'd have to think about it. We communicated some more after she left, mostly by e-mail. I finally decided to let her see them. She came back to Chicago. I took a day off work. I went to my bank and got the documents out of my safe-deposit box. I gave them to her.”

“What did she think of them?”

“We went back to her hotel room. I took her through them, one by one, explaining how they worked. She was real excited. She already had other documents from the case. They all seemed to fit together, she said. She told me my documents were the key.”

“Did she tell you why?”

Ruth shook her head. “I told her not to. I told her I didn't want to know. I'd closed off that part of my life. Permanently. I told her I never wanted to hear about it again. And I still don't.”

“Was that your last contact with Judith?”

Her eyes suddenly welled up with tears. She looked around the room and went over to the side table, where there were glasses and coasters and napkins. She grabbed a napkin and held it in her clenched fist.

He said nothing.

She came back to her chair and sat down. She pressed the napkin against the bottom of her nose.

He waited.

“She sent me a Christmas card,” she said, almost in a whisper.

“Judith?”

She nodded.

“When?”

“It arrived three days after she died.”

He waited.

“She included a message,” she said.

“What kind of message?”

She looked up, her eyes red. “About what she was doing. I didn't know she was already dead when I got her card. I had no idea. I didn't hear anything else from her. Not from her or from anyone else. I didn't find out that she had died until February, and by then it was too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“For him. He was dead, too.”

“Who was dead?”

“The reporter. The one she wanted me to give the message to. My God, I didn't know what to do then. I just hoped it would all disappear. That I'd never hear anything about it again. And I didn't. Until today. Until you.”

“Do you remember the name of the reporter?”

She shook her head.

“Markman?” Hirsch asked. “Peter Markman?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Markman. That's him.”

“What did she tell you about him?”

“Not much. When she came back to Chicago that second time, she told me that a reporter was helping her investigate the story. She never told me his name, though. Not until she sent me the Christmas card. Even then she didn't say he was the reporter.”

“How did you know he was?”

“I put two and two together. I knew she was working with a reporter, and she said something on the card about him and a Pulitzer, so I assumed he was the one.”

“Do you remember what she said about a Pulitzer?”

“No.” She paused, staring down at the table. “I still have the card.”

“Where?”

“In my safe-deposit box.”

“What about the documents you gave to Judith? Do you still have copies?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I gave her my copies. I trusted her. I told her that I never wanted to see them again or hear anything about them again. Ever. I made her promise.”

“She took your only copies?”

Ruth nodded.

Hirsch felt a wave of frustration.

“But I still have her Christmas card,” she said.

“Right.”

“I can send it to you.”

He gazed at her, trying to hide his disappointment. “That would be nice.”

“Maybe it will help.”

“Maybe.”

“I liked her.”

He nodded.

She stared at him, her eyes no longer red. “She had a lot of guts.”

“That she did.”

“A lot more than I did.” She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “They killed her, didn't they?”