Silenced in Spain

by D'arcy Kavanagh

  And then he had it. While he had been walking Plato, his mind had drifted back to Ochoa’s request and his use of words – and produced a result. It sometimes happened that way for Burke. Just when he’d be taking it easy, his brain would produce some theory or idea, almost like it had been reviewing the data while the rest of Burke wasn’t doing much.

  Burke was convinced Ochoa believed someone involved in the food-fraud organization was using a variety of news sources to monitor how the investigation was going. If the stories pinpointed others as being responsible, this person would know how to react. If it looked safe to do so, he or she could get back to regular business, even if it was illegal. The spotlight would be far away.

  A day before, Burke would have guessed Tim Fritz was Ochoa’s target. Now he believed it was Wendy Klassen. She was the brains and she was the ruthless one, the person who could order attacks on potential threats just as easily as she could watch the mangled bodies of colliding cyclists.

  If it was Klassen pulling the strings, was Tim Fritz aware of what she was doing? Burke thought her husband, who’d likely not been named by Lόpez in any documents the Spaniard had provided or he’d have been arrested, was probably unaware what his wife had been up to. Wendy Klassen had done her worst in the shadows.

  That’s when Burke understood Ochoa was confident that Tessier’s and his media efforts wouldn’t focus on Klassen at all. The flic expected the reports would mention others, including Fritz. And that would provide a sense of security for Klassen if she was scrutinizing media coverage which was likely.

  Ochoa wanted the media to get it wrong.

  Clever bastard, thought Burke.

  And if Klassen, confident she was safe, returned to her criminal activities, she wouldn’t know various police forces would be monitoring her, waiting for her to make one mistake so they could pounce.

  It fit, thought Burke. Finally.

  For a moment, Burke was angry that Ochoa had manipulated him and Tessier with such ease. Then he recalled how he’d poked his nose into police matters, asked questions and confronted the flics. He’d invited being used. It was his fault he hadn’t seen what was happening.

  Burke also realized he wasn’t being used just by Ochoa. The Girona flic was likely the point person for a group of police forces that included Interpol and, because Klassen was American, the FBI in the United States. Ochoa was the first one to encounter Burke and it made sense he’d be selected to manipulate Burke as the investigation gathered momentum.

  But would Klassen become complacent and make a mistake? Burke had doubts, but he’d been wrong about a lot of things in recent days. Ochoa, for whatever reasons, had a different sense of the woman and believed she’d make a critical error.

  And then Burke found himself at home. He had hardly been aware of his surroundings the last few minutes.

  Plato rushed up the stairs, eager for his post-walk treat. Burke gave his dog his reward and watched as Plato gobbled it and then trotted off to his bed.

  Hélène wouldn’t show up for at least another two hours, but Burke knew he’d have no trouble keeping awake to greet her. Mateo Ochoa had given him plenty to think about.

  Chapter 59

  Two weeks later as the days grew shorter and the evenings cooler, Burke grabbed his road bike and headed into the hills for a classic autumn ride. In the fall, the Riviera usually went from steamy to rainy in just a few days, but that hadn’t been the case this year and Burke wanted to take advantage of the good weather. Besides, he wanted to clear his mind after knocking off a blog about next year’s Tour de France which would be starting in the Netherlands.

  Without too many kilometres in his legs over the last month, Burke struggled at times when the incline punched up, but he didn’t mind. It felt good to work hard and feel his body slowly respond, especially after his injuries sustained in Spain during his Vuelta experience.

  After an hour, he took a break, looking in the distance at Cannes, the home of the famous film festival and still busy with tourists. He wasn’t a fan of Cannes – too wallet-oriented for his tastes although the Old Town remained interesting – but its location against the Mediterranean was spectacular.

  Sitting on a large rock with his bike lying beside him and the occasional vehicle passing by, Burke thought how fortunate he was to live where he did. From mid-spring to mid-autumn, the Riviera churned with visitors from around the world, but he didn’t mind because he could escape to the tranquility of his village. And when the tourists were gone, the coastal communities took on a sleepy quality.

  As he closed his eyes to let the sun warm his face, Burke’s phone rang. He pulled it from his jersey pocket and looked at the screen, expecting to see it was a call from Hélène or François Lemaire or the manager of the TV station in Nice where he did the sports show.

  But it wasn’t.

  The caller was Mateo Ochoa.

  “Buenos dias,” Burke said.

  Ochoa replied in his excellent French: “Did you know Al Capone was sent to prison for tax evasion?”

  Burke shook his head. The Spanish police officer was his usual obtuse self and Burke wondered if he was that way with everyone he knew.

  “I think I might have read about it, but why are you talking about Al Capone?”

  Ochoa chuckled without much mirth. “You should follow the news for the next few days. You never know what you’ll learn.”

  “Something about Al Capone?”

  “Come now, Monsieur Burke, you can use your brain better than that.”

  Burke sighed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Think harder,” Ochoa said.

  Burke thought about disconnecting, but he was curious, so he took a few seconds to consider a response.

  “You’ve got something on Tim Fritz?”

  “You didn’t recently text me about him,” Ochoa said.

  “You mean Wendy Klassen. You’ve got her for tax evasion?”

  “It will likely be one of the charges facing her.”

  “And what about other charges?”

  “They’re coming, thanks to you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You’ll recall giving me advice about checking out Wendy Klassen’s reaction to the re-broadcasting of that serious bike crash at one of the those Vuelta soirées?”

  “I remember.”

  “I reviewed the video and saw her reaction. You were right. She wasn’t bothered one bit. The others were, including her husband, but she was stone cold.”

  “But you mentioned tax evasion. How did you get there from that video? I thought the video would help you understand how ruthless she could be.”

  “Patience, Monsieur Burke,” Ochoa replied.

  Burke groaned.

  “I studied the video several times and noticed something,” Ochoa continued. “When everyone stayed glued to the crash being shown a second and third time, Wendy Klassen borrowed her husband’s phone which had been on the table. And then she punched in a message.”

  “So?”

  “I wondered who was receiving her text and so I watched the video yet again with a couple of colleagues for company. And we spotted something coincidental. Seconds after she obviously sent it, Chef Andres looked at his phone and then glanced at Tim Fritz. He obviously believed Fritz had sent it because it came from the American’s phone. Then he read it and, frankly, he looked nervous, maybe even frightened.”

  “OK, but so what?”

  “We had Chef Andres’ phone from when we’d arrested him after the Figueres soirée that went wrong. We’d checked it when we first confiscated it, but found nothing of importance. But after watching that video, we got our techs to take another, more in-depth look into the phone.”

  “And they found something?” interrupted Burke.

  “Chef Andres thought he’d cleared off his old texts and he’d done a reasonable job. But he was wrong in believing his messages were gone f
or good. Our techs found a dozen texts that came from Fritz’s phone over a three-day period, all of them telling our culinary star what to do about Seῇor Lόpez – and you. And threatening what would happen if he didn’t handle the job.”

  “And did your techs find Chef Andres’ responses?”

  “They did indeed. And they weren’t good. In fact, they’re bad enough to send our culinary superstar to prison for a long time.”

  “But what about Klassen? Do you have her husband’s phone? And if you do, what can you prove?”

  “In that video, there was a clock visible on a wall behind Chef Andres. With that information, we can establish when he received the text – and when it was sent. And that is enough proof to put Wendy Klassen into the picture. Our techs were also able to identify with certainty that the messages to Chef Andres were from Tim Fritz’s phone. So we really didn’t need his phone to make the connection.”

  “Have you interviewed Wendy Klassen about this?”

  “Wendy Klassen was in the United States eight hours after Seῇor Lόpez killed himself. She flew back in their private jet.”

  Burke remembered that Fritz was questioned by the police in the aftermath of the Figueres chaos.

  “She made the trip alone, didn’t she?” he said.

  “She did indeed. And she hasn’t left the U.S. since. We’ve tried to talk to her, suggesting we want to look more into her husband’s business ventures, which isn’t the case since we know Fritz wasn’t a player in the food-fraud scheme, but her lawyers are refusing to let us talk to her. We expect they’re working on making sure she can’t be extradited even though there’s a treaty in place.”

  “Is Tim Fritz with her now?”

  “No. He’s keeping his distance.”

  “Do you have them both under surveillance?” Burke wondered.

  “She’s the one we’re interested in,” Ochoa said. ”And our FBI friends are equally interested in her activities and whereabouts.”

  Burke shook his head. “But where does Al Capone and tax evasion come into it?”

  “We found a text on Chef Andres’ phone discussing payments to him in an off-shore account in the Caribbean. Our Interpol friends helped on this one, finding out that the payments came from another off-shore account. Guess whose account it was?”

  “Wendy Klassen’s?”

  “Correct.”

  A van stopped by Burke and a middle-aged woman popped her head out the window.

  “Is everything OK? Are you injured or do you need a ride?”

  Burke smiled, said he was just relaxing and thanked her. The woman waved and the van drove off. A nice, concerned person. Burke wasn’t meeting many of those these days.

  “What happened?” Ochoa asked.

  “Someone stopped to ask how I’m doing. Anyway, does Klassen know she’s in big trouble?”

  “Not yet. We’re just getting more evidence.”

  “About what?”

  “Interpol got its forensic accountants to check into Klassen’s financial affairs and they’re finding plenty. And once those people, or our own forensic accountants for that matter, get a sniff, they’re total pitbulls. They never stop until they find everything that’s out there. Frankly, they scare the hell out of me.”

  “Is she going to be arrested soon?”

  “It’s just about piling up evidence to show how she financed a lot of the criminal activities that we originally believed her husband directed.”

  “Did he know what she was up to?”

  “Monsieur Fritz is a smart, well-educated man who’s knowledgeable about the publishing industry, but he’s not a criminal and doesn’t think that way. He’s smug and arrogant, and thinks he’s the smartest person everywhere he goes. But he isn’t, at least when his wife is nearby. She’s the one with the real brains. It’s just too bad she’s been using them the way she has.”

  “And do you believe he didn’t know what she was up to?”

  “We interviewed him twice and he didn’t have a clue. He believes all her trips have been for fun or for some charity project. Her quick departure after Figueres to the U.S. might have made him rethink that, though.”

  “But where’s the tax evasion come into it?”

  “The Interpol accountants have traced how she’s shifted her money here and there without paying taxes. The FBI now has that information and will likely prosecute her once they’ve got all the evidence they can.”

  “But can’t you get her for more serious stuff?” Burke asked.

  “Well, first, a conviction on tax evasion could put her away for a lot of years. The Americans don’t like that kind of thing. But it’s possible she could be convicted of a variety of other actions involving racketeering and if that’s the case, she’ll never get out of prison.”

  “You’ve got her then.”

  “If she’s smart, she’ll plead guilty to tax evasion, hoping for a lighter sentence, and do whatever she can to avoid convictions on other charges. After a few years, she’ll be free. Like Al Capone, she’ll do time for tax evasion and not for a host of far worse crimes.”

  Burke looked at the coastline view for a few seconds and then said, “Why are you telling me this?”

  “As a way of saying thanks. I know you can’t blog about what I’ve just told you because you have no proof and because I won’t confirm anything if you do. But we wanted you to have a heads-up that there will be some announcements coming soon that you and your editor will want to pay attention to.”

  “But why do that? I still don’t get it.”

  “You gave me a different perspective on what happened to your friend Colin Bothwick. That helped us. You also provided some other information that was useful and, frankly, you made yourself a target for some bad people who made mistakes in trying to get to you. Then you told me about that video.”

  “So I helped you by accident,” Burke said.

  “If you want to put it that way, yes,” Ochoa replied.

  “What about me returning to Spain for all those trials?”

  “You’re off the hook,” the flic said. “The rats are either confessing or giving us enough information in a plea bargain of their own to convict the others. As for Wendy Klassen, you’re really not involved there. So, you can stay in your quiet little French village and not worry.”

  That was good news, Burke thought. He didn’t want to go back into any courtroom or return soon to Girona or Figueres. His Vuelta nightmare would take a long time to forget.

  “I’m glad to hear that, Chief Inspector,” Burke said.

  “Then goodbye,” Ochoa said and ended the call.

  Burke tucked his phone into his jersey pocket, studied the view for a few more minutes and then cycled home, happier than when he’d begun his ride.

  When he got home, Hélène asked about his ride.

  “It was OK, but I could have used more energy,” Burke said. “I’m not in great shape.”

  “Maybe you need a little holiday. Perhaps we could take a few days and visit the beaches in southern Spain. The weather is still hot there.”

  Burke shuddered. “No, not Spain. I’m thinking Italy, maybe Sicily.”

  “Where the Mafia are?”

  “They’re probably not as bad as some people I know. We’ll just hang out at the beach, drink some nice wine and not talk to anyone. That way, we won’t get into any trouble at all.”

  Hélène studied Burke for a few moments and then nodded. “I’ll get the calendar and we can check some dates.”

  Burke smiled. “It’s a plan.”

  Epilogue

  Three days later and right after booking a small hotel in the western Sicilian town of Trapani, Paul Burke stood over his computer and stretched his back. It still ached from the Girona attack. His doctor said the pain could last another year before disappearing, but Burke wasn’t bothered by the prognosis. As an ex-pro cyclist, he had broken several bones and usually ached when the weathe
r turned damp and chilly. It was just part of life.

  He did a few stretches and sat back facing his computer screen.

  Burke still hadn’t learned anything new about Wendy Klassen, Chef Andres or the others connected to the Vuelta and the food-fraud scheme. Maybe Ochoa had been wrong.

  He tapped away at the keyboard and within five minutes, he saw a newly posted story saying several government officials not just in Spain, but in several other European countries including France were pleading guilty to a variety of charges connected to food fraud. The story said most would likely serve between three and five years in prison.

  Burke read that elected officials were condemning the greed of their bureaucratic underlings, all the while denying they knew anything about fraudulent food transactions. He wondered how many politicians would suffer fallout at the ballot box.

  Then he saw a sidebar that said Chef Andres Calderόn, the culinary star, was going to be sentenced the next day for fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud and tax evasion. There was no mention about his involvement in any violent crimes.

  And below that information was a paragraph about Wendy Klassen, the wife of publishing giant Tim Fritz, being detained in the United States on tax evasion charges related to the food-fraud scheme.

  Burke felt the lawyers for both Chef Andres and Klassen had been busy working on plea bargains.

  The story concluded with an Interpol official predicting the investigation into the food-fraud scheme would be ongoing for months, maybe even years. It was a multi-billion-euro criminal activity and plenty of people had profited by it.

  That was it.

  Burke was frustrated, almost angry. There hadn’t been any mention about Bothwick’s murder and the attempt on his own life.

  It seemed the investigation was focusing on big money and politics.

  Two days later, Burke read there had been plea deals and sentences for several individuals involved in the food-fraud ring.