CHAPTER
19 – A FREUDIAN SHIP
Scarne
drove back to Josh’s apartment and changed into shorts and a T-shirt. He spent
a punishing but much-needed hour in the building’s exercise room, starting on
its Nautilus circuit and finishing with free weights. After a steam and a
shower he was about to start reading the Sink newsletters when his cell phone
beeped. It was Evelyn.
“I
just got a call from the state licensing board. A very nice man said that they
were looking into some ‘irregularities,’ and wondered if you could come in for
a chat.”
“What
kind of ‘irregularities?”
“He
wouldn’t say, but he said it was merely pro forma.”
“That’s
Latin for ‘you’re screwed’.”
“I
told him you were traveling. That’s when he used the subpoena word.”
“Call
Don Tierney and ask him to stall them. Tell him it’s probably Randolph Shields
applying the pressure.”
“Are
you making a nuisance of yourself again?”
“I’ve
just begun.”
After
ringing off, Scarne sat on a couch and started reading some of the articles in
the Sink newsletters:
“Czech
Republic Seeks Extradition of Nigerian in $60 M Internet Scam”
“British
Virgin Islands Hedge Fund Collapses; Investors lose $140 M”
“PwC
(Bermuda) Partner Met Madoff; Gave Him Clean Bill of Health”
“Offshore
Bank Refuses to Turn Over Records, U.S. Says”
“Accounting
Firms Agree to Pay $30 M to Settle Nevis Fraud Action”
“Turkey
Seeks Evidence from Massachusetts in $100 M Ponzi”
“Belgium
Seeks Identity of Website Casino Fraudster”
“Montserrat
Banker Allegedly Embezzled $14 M”
“$10
M Judgment Entered Against Barbados Insurer; Minister Resigns”
He
was astounded at the sheer variety and sophistication of the Ponzi schemes,
money laundering, investment frauds, securities violations and other scams the
world over, not to mention the colorful rogues who perpetrated them. Some of
the bilk-artists had been caught and prosecuted but skipped town. They now
operated under new names, using dummy or shell corporations in friendlier
jurisdictions, trying to keep one step ahead of overmatched regulators and
cops. A section in
Offshore Confidential
entitled
“Reggie’s
Regulators Hall of Shame”
contained profiles and photos of various
government ministers who looked the other way – and got rich – while the
banking and securities laws of their nations were flouted. Another column
detailed the status of all the libel actions brought against Sink. According to
a note at the bottom of the column,
Offshore Confidential
never lost a
libel suit.
After
two hours Scarne just stopped reading. Since Sink only reported on confirmed
cases in a trillion-dollar sewer of offshore corruption, that meant there were
hundreds, maybe thousands of crooks still undiscovered. The fact that Victor
Ballantrae owned an offshore bank didn’t mean he was one of them, but it begged
the question: Why own an offshore bank?
Scarne
needed a drink. He went to the kitchen and took a quick inventory of the
refrigerator and pantry. Meyer’s Dark Rum, limes, orange juice, grenadine and
maraschino cherries. Bless you, Mario. Five minutes later he was sitting in
front of his laptop sipping a Planter’s Punch. After a workout it was important
to replace electrolytes, he told himself.
As
he expected, the Ballantrae Group website was a font of useless information.
The company had $56 billion under “active management,” whatever that meant, up
from $40 billion a year earlier. The interests of its clients “always came
first” and its management team included “the best and the brightest” of
financial advisors, research analysts and trading specialists who offered “a
unique spectrum of expertise and investment products.”
The
company’s 128-page, four-color corporate magazine, the Ballantrae Eagle, could
be downloaded as a PDF file, and Scarne did. The corporate logo, a golden
eagle’s profile surrounded by Olympic-looking torches, dominated the cover and
graced every page of the magazine. The logo was also prominent on the many
shots of buildings, plush offices, corporate jets and the Ballantrae yacht, the
Botany Bay
. A Freudian ship, Scarne wondered?
Victor
Ballantrae, a large man with a red beard, was pictured with American
Presidents, past and present; dictators; prime ministers; governors, mayors;
members of Congress; Hollywood stars; famous athletes, and, of course, children
of all colors, both healthy and sick. Ballantrae’s philanthropic deeds were
well documented, but Scarne soon tired of Ballantrae’s expansive smile, which
he thought looked piratical. I’m being unfair, he admitted. I’m looking for a
reason to dislike the guy. But there’s just something…
The
next section did nothing to allay Scarne’s discomfort. The Ballantrae Group’s
corporate structure was diagrammed in a “tree” chart that looked like something
Darwin would have designed for
The Origin of the Species.
The Ballantrae
Group was represented by the trunk and scores of subsidiaries branched out from
there: Ballantrae International Bank, Ballantrae Trust, Ballantrae Financial
Services, Ballantrae Investment Banking, Ballantrae Bank of Panama, Ballantrae
Aruba, Ballantrae Groupo Mexico, Ballantrae Venezuela Ltd., Ballantrae Group
Suisse, Ballantrae Français, Ballantrae Development Corporation, Ballantrae
Bullion and so on. There were so many branches and sprouts that Scarne had
trouble reading the small type. He counted 23 that were in boldface. A note at
the bottom of the page proudly stated that the subsidiaries in bold had been
added within the previous year. Rapid expansion like that took a lot of cash.
How did a company continue to pay those high C.D. rates? Could it really be a
giant Ponzi?
The
rest of the magazine and the bulk of the website itself were devoted to brief
profiles of the subsidiaries and some of their directors. All were apparently
doing wonderfully although any references to revenues and profits were vague.
The offshore bank in Antigua rated only a few lines and no photo, which Scarne
found curious. He also found it strange that he came across no photos of Alana
Loeb, or at least none that were identified as her. She was listed by title in
a corporate directory (in addition to being Chief of Staff, she was the
Ballantrae Group’s Corporate Counsel and a director of several subsidiaries).
There were dozens of attractive women on the website in group photos who were
not named in captions. Scarne wondered if Loeb was among them. Sheldon had
described her as stunning. None of the women in the pictures quite qualified.
He remembered Sheldon’s age and reserved judgment on his taste in women. Of
course, Emma Shields had also been impressed.
Scarne
was thoroughly sick of reading about Ballantrae. And he was hungry. Fonthill
had eaten most of his lunch. He closed the site and made himself a couple of
sandwiches. He grabbed a beer, went back to his laptop and opened his emails.
He was mildly surprised to see that Paulo and Curley had already forwarded a
copy of their investigation.
The
report appeared to be a thorough job (a certainty once they found out who the
victim’s family was) but there wasn’t much in it that he didn’t already know.
Beach crowds change, so the two detectives had a tough time finding someone who
remembered seeing Shields that specific day.
A
local character who patrolled the beach every day with a metal detector saw
Josh before he left for the night. The prospector, who was not a suspect (he
was 73), remembered him because he was always in virtually the same spot, at
about the same time, every Wednesday. There was no one else around except two
men in a small boat anchored just offshore. It was getting dark and the boat
was bouncing up and down so he couldn’t give a good description of the men,
other than to say one was taller than the other and had blond hair. The boat
was either a Dusky or a Grady White. He couldn’t be sure.
Scarne
was about to put the report aside when he thought of something. He reread the
part about the men in the small boat bouncing around and recalled one of the
detectives telling him there were small craft warnings out that day. The
prospector didn’t mention any other boat, so it was probably the only one
there. Why would a small boat be so close to the beach in such rough water? He
recalled Fonthill postulating how a boat and a partner would have made it
easier for a killer.
It
wasn’t much to go on, and Scarne also didn’t like the part about Josh’s rigid
routine. But he still had trouble envisioning a murder.
CHAPTER
20 – ‘HE WAS LUNCH’
In
Seattle, Noah Sealth was having no such problem. He didn’t think that Taras
Rudnyk, now splayed naked across a desk in the warehouse office, had
accidentally cut himself open from forehead to ankles. He counted at least 14
major knife wounds and at least twice that number of minor slices. Sealth would
have to wait for the M.E. report but he was pretty sure that most of the stabs
had been torture related. The facial and genital mutilation would have been
particularly effective. He assumed the dead man eventually talked.
“I
would have,” he said aloud.
The
smell of blood and what had been in the man’s bowels and bladder even
overwhelmed the odor of fish in the building. The forensic team was snapping
pictures, placing yellow markers and swabbing away, so Sealth left to get a
breath of air. When he got outside he walked over to a group of men being
warily guarded by uniformed cops. One of the men was Andriy Boyko.
“Who
found him?”
Nobody
said anything until Boyko nodded. Then one of the others said, “I did.” He
looked at his chief who nodded again. “I came here to look for him.”
“Why?”
“I
sent him,” Boyko said. “He wasn’t answering his cell phone. That wasn’t like
him.” Boyko smiled. “Although he apparently had a good reason.”
About
the only reason Boyko would accept from Rudnyk, Sealth thought. The dead man
was one of the Ukrainian mob chief’s closest lieutenants and would never be out
of touch long.
“Why
did you think he was here?”
“I
didn’t think anything. It was one of many places we looked.”
“How
long were you looking?”
“Since
noon. He did not show up for lunch.”
Sealth
knew Boyko and his chief henchmen made a habit of lunching together, usually at
a busy restaurant where it would be difficult to be overheard. Unlike the Mafia,
which was partial to their “social clubs,” the Uke mob liked to move their
strategy meetings around. The random selection of restaurants, chosen at the
last minute, made it almost impossible for local police or Feds to eavesdrop
electronically. It also thwarted potential assassins.
“From
the looks of it,” Sealth said, “he
was
lunch. Why was he here?”
“I
don’t know, Detective. But since you can’t possibly believe I would slaughter
one of my men in my own warehouse and then call the police, perhaps we can go
now.”
More
police vehicles were pulling up, as well as the morgue wagon.
“Your
men can leave after they give their names and addresses to these officers. I’d
like to talk to you for a minute. Let’s take a stroll.”
The
two men walked over to a bulkhead. They stood facing the busy harbor. A seagull
standing on a piling swiveled its head toward them briefly and then went back
to looking out over the water.
“No
rain for two days,” Boyko said.
In
Seattle, that passed for news.
“I’m
worried about my lawn,” Sealth said. “Any idea who did this?”
“Please,
Detective. I saw the body. We both know. I heard about the autopsy. It’s
already a legend. Were you there?”
“Yeah.
Brutti went berserk, and I can’t blame him.”
“So,
he thinks I killed his sister and came looking for me.”
“She
was found in one of your warehouses under your fish. Your buildings have become
very unhealthy all of a sudden.”
“We
don’t target families.” Sealth turned to stare at him. Boyko smiled. “As a
general rule. And even if I had killed her, there are better places to dispose
of a body.” He gestured toward the Pacific Ocean. “So, I’ve heard.”
“Look,
Andriy, we both know it was a setup. The question is, ‘What are you going to do
now?’ My chief is worried about a mob war. I already have two murders to solve.
I don’t need any more.”
“You
believe I should do nothing? Let the police handle it? That will really endear
me to my men.”
“My
partner is out looking for Carlo. So is his family. All I’m saying is that the
man is unhinged. He acted on his own. If you saw what he did at the morgue
you’d have lost it too. Perhaps your men will understand that if you explain it
to them.”
Boyko
took out a pack of cigarettes. He offered one to Sealth, who took it. He’d been
dying for one ever since Maria Brutti’s autopsy. They stood smoking for a
while. The seagull apparently disapproved and flew away.
“Perhaps.
Whoever killed the woman and planted her body in my warehouse did not count on
the hagfish.”
“Hagfish?”
“That’s
what came out of her, Detective. I was given a clear description. They are
parasites. Occasionally get dredged up with bottom fish, like halibut. We try
to separate them out but some slip through. It must have been in the same
container as her body.”
“Brutti
believes it was torture.”
“They
do not feed on living creatures. She was dead when it entered her.”
“I’m
sure Carlo will be happy to hear that. If he doesn’t already know. He spent a
lot of quality time with your friend in there before he finally finished him
off. I’d guess he got more than name, rank and serial number. He probably knows
a lot of things now.”
“Then
he knows I had nothing to do with his sister’s murder. So I do not think I have
anything to fear from him anymore.”
Good
point, Sealth admitted.
“Any
idea who might?”
The
seagull returned to its perch. At least Sealth thought it was the same seagull.
They all looked alike to him.
“Can
I go now, Detective? I have a business to run.”
“One
more thing, Andriy. You don’t seem to be particularly broken up by the
mutilation and murder of one of your closest associates.”
Boyko
shrugged.
“He
would be alive if he had been where he was supposed to be.”
Sealth
didn’t buy it. There was something else going on. He suspected that Boyko
didn’t know why Rudnyk was in the warehouse office. The Ukrainian turned to
leave.
“Boyko!”
“Yes,
what is it?”
“Let
me have another cigarette.”
Boyko
laughed and threw him the pack.