“This must be such a terrible shock,” I said.
“You may not know this, but Skye was pregnant.”
I nodded. “I did know that.”
“We were talking about baby names just before she left for Mexico,” Ryan said.
“You were?” My voice was more than a little incredulous, and I flushed with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I just thought, um…”
“You’re aware the baby wasn’t technically mine,” Ryan filled in. “I understand. Some people might find this surprising, but I didn’t care. I’ve always wanted children.”
I was speechless. It wasn’t hard to understand how you could meet someone and love their kids as your own, but I couldn’t grasp how Ryan was able to accept what Skye had done. It made me sad to think of her demanding that Gavin marry her, while knowing she had Ryan in her back pocket in case that didn’t work out. She really was manipulative with the men in her life.
“I wanted to ask you about the story Skye was working on,” I said. “All I know is that it was about Pantheon’s being involved in some kind of fraud.”
“I’m surprised she revealed that much,” Ryan said. “Skye only told me because she needed help. It was a sign of how desperate she was. She’d broken up with me for an Englishman named Stroud who worked for Pantheon, and there she was, coming back to get me to piece together a financial puzzle for her.”
“Can you explain it to me?” I asked.
“I’m not real good with numbers, so talk slow,” Jesse added.
Ryan turned to me, studying my face. “How much do you know about money laundering?”
Jesse and I looked at each other. “Go on,” Jesse said.
“The basic principle is simple.” Now that Ryan was in technical mode, his voice was stronger. “Criminals have cash, but they need to hide how they got their money, so they run it through legitimate businesses.”
Jesse shook his head. “How would you do that through a hotel? Anyone who sees it is gonna know there’s something fishy with guys cartin’ around bundles of cash.”
“You’re not comprehending the scope of the operation,” Ryan said. “After Skye fell for this Stroud character, she began to travel just to see him. That was when she noticed something fishy about certain Pantheon hotels. She said you’d be blind not to see they didn’t have guests. She did a little digging. She’d be the first person to admit that she didn’t have a financial background and she could barely do long division, but she saw the books that were full of ghost guests who’d supposedly stayed at the hotels. That meant gobs of money were being laundered through the hotels day after day.”
“So that’s why the hotels all claimed they were full,” I said. “They didn’t want anyone staying there to see that they weren’t.”
“If you think about it, an expensive hotel can rake in money,” Ryan said. “Imagine every room is full each night, and those rooms have a rack rate of, say a thousand a pop. Then let’s say the restaurant is full, the bar is full, the spa is full, maybe there’s a per-guest daily resort fee. Everyone’s getting a room-service breakfast each morning. Add it up.”
“But the hotel would be paying tax on all of that revenue,” I pointed out.
Ryan’s cell phone rang. He picked it up and glanced at the screen. “I should grab this. Hold on. Hello, Denny? It’s good to hear your voice. I was worried about you.” There was a long pause. “Lily told me what happened. I can’t believe it. Yes, Lily Moore. She’s here right now. You’re welcome to come over.” Another pause. “Okay. I’m going to need your help with the memorial service. I just want it to be perfect for her. Okay. Take care. Get some rest. Goodnight.”
“That was Denny Chiu?” I asked.
“She’s a good friend of ours. I was trying to call her when I couldn’t reach Skye. She just got back to New York. She’s really shaken up.” He rubbed his forehead. “Okay, where were we? This is where creative accounting comes in. The hotel has to pay its employees. Imagine there’s a whole army of phantom employees. They need to buy food for all those meals. They need to do maintenance on the building and make repairs. Maybe they say there’s a problem with the elevator, the water system, whatever. It doesn’t really matter what. The point it, those expenses add up and most of the profit disappears. They’ll pay something in taxes, but nothing substantial.”
Something Pete had said about Skye came back to me. She asked what I thought the flowers cost. You know, the flowers in the lobby. She asked if they were worth ten thousand a month. I’m, like, this is Mexico. Are you crazy?
“Another thing to consider is that the hotel can increase its revenue stream in fraudulent ways.”
“Like what?” Jesse asked.
“Well, Skye told me about a bunch of shacks the company put up in Monterrey. They were of poor quality, and she couldn’t believe anyone would stay in them. When she asked Stroud about it, he said they were presold and that many of Pantheon’s guests liked a rustic setting.” Ryan shook his head. “That English guy fed her a line of garbage and she ate it up. I told her that it sounded like he was the one running the scam, and she got angry at me. She said no, that she’d seen other Pantheon hotels outside of Mexico and they were run the same way. She said Martin Sklar was a mean bastard who would do anything to keep his hotel business afloat.”
“So the Hotel Cerón had ghosts, after all,” I said. “But they were phantom guests rather than a resident spirit.” Martin was so proud of his company, but in a teetering global economy, with travel revenues down, the business undoubtedly needed a boost. Pantheon Worldwide was a high-profile operation. It wouldn’t look good to have the luxury brand squeezed by hard times. Had Martin hit on the idea of turning his properties into money-laundering pits?
“Skye snuck around, getting scraps of information,” Ryan went on, “A couple of weeks ago, she found a source connected to Pantheon. She was expecting to get some solid information that way.” Ryan’s face got tight. “The last time I talked with her, she told me that if anything happened to her, it would be because Martin Sklar was determined to protect his interests.”
CHAPTER 52
We made the drive back to manhattan without a word between us. The car wasn’t silent, though. Jesse put on a Sarah Vaughan album and turned the volume up. The first song that came up was “Fool’s Paradise,” and I wondered if that’s what I’d been living in. Skye had been blind to Gavin’s faults. In the back of her mind, she must have known he was guilty of a great many things, and the mental contortions she went through to hide that from herself would have been extensive. But was I any different? Was I any less of a fool for Martin than Skye had been for Gavin?
When we got back to the Village, Jesse gave me some juice and crackers and dialed the deli around the corner for himself.
“I know you just went through a nightmare, but you have to cheer up a little,” he said. “You look like somebody just shot your dog. Or your best friend. And since I’m your best friend, I’m hopin’ to high heaven not to get shot again.”
“You’re never going to let me live that down, will you?” I asked.
“Prob’ly not.”
“For the record, I yelled at you not to come into the room that time. You wouldn’t have been shot if you’d listened to me.”
Jesse patted my head. “You keep tellin’ yourself that.”
After the food was delivered, he dragged me to the table, but I didn’t want to eat. As Jesse set a bowl of soup in front of me, I thought of the soup that had been served at lunch on Saturday. Skye was already dead by then. Gavin was a corpse less than twenty-four hours later.
When Jesse asked what I was thinking, I told him. “Boy, I’m sorry I asked.” He went back to eating his soup. “Okay, if we can’t have a civilized conversation, let’s have an uncivilized one.”
“What does that mean?”
“You don’t think Gavin killed Skye. Want to explain?”
“Gavin is cold… was cold, I mean. But I think he cared about Skye, in
his own strange way. He was embarrassed to admit he felt anything for her. I think she might have actually loved him. What I find hard to accept is that Skye knew he was going to do something to me, but she stayed with him anyway.”
“Maybe she thought he wouldn’t do anything bad if she were around,” Jesse offered.
“She knew. And she didn’t leave.” I took a sip of broth. “If Gavin was going to get rid of her, he wouldn’t have waited until I arrived. There was too much risk she’d say something to me.”
“That’s a fair point.” Jesse chewed slowly, a sure sign he was deep in thought; normally he was a speedy eater. “So, Skye was hangin’ in with Gavin, even though she didn’t like what he was up to.”
“Skye was working on a story about how Pantheon is using its hotels to launder money. That would destroy Gavin—and Martin. Not only would he have to step down, but he’d end up in jail.”
Jesse started to cough, and took a long swallow of water. “You’re sayin’ Sklar had all the reason in the world to shut her down, Lil. He had a motive for murder.”
“But I don’t believe he’d do it for the company,” I said. “The only time I know for sure that Martin wanted someone dead was because she was a threat to someone he loved.”
“Then you’re saying Sklar wouldn’t murder Skye, because he wouldn’t kill for the company,” Jesse pointed out. “I can believe that. He’s not some marauding maniac. So why do you look so worried?”
“Because Martin is someone who’d kill to protect a person he loves. And I know he loves me. If there was ever a way of showing that, coming down to Mexico and putting his life in danger was it.”
“I see your point. But if you ever go back to him, I’ll put a nail in your mule head myself.”
I shook my head. “You don’t quite get it. Martin killed Gavin. That was self-defense. But, even if Gavin hadn’t had a gun in his hand, I think Martin would have killed him, because Gavin had tried to hurt me. From Martin’s point of view, if Skye were involved with Gavin’s plan, then she would deserve to die as well.”
“Okay, but that doesn’t explain why an SUV tried to crush us like a tin can today,” Gavin said. “I’d love to say Sklar put somebody up the that, but he didn’t, not any more than I did. So what does that leave?”
“Somebody who wants to hurt Martin,” I said.
“And who’s that?”
I racked my brain. “I don’t have a name, but I have an idea. Gavin was sure that he had the support of key members of Pantheon’s board. He never named anyone in particular, but what if one of them was backing his power play?”
“Silently backing it,” Jesse pointed out. “Someone who’d let Gavin do the dirty work, and pull strings from the background.”
“There was one thing that was completely out of place in Skye’s bag. She had a guidebook about Eastern Europe, and she’d marked the Pantheon hotels in it.”
“You find out who’s runnin’ that part of the show, you got the silent partner.”
I picked up the phone and dialed Martin’s number. “Lily. How are you sweetheart?”
“You never stop,” I said. “I have a strange question for you. Who runs Pantheon’s Eastern European division?”
“That’s an interesting question. The territory is divided between a Russian woman named Svetlana Khorkov, who is famous for her temper tantrums, and good old Josef Dietrich.”
“Josef Dietrich,” I repeated, remembering the times I had met him. He was a decade older than Martin and heavyset, with a hearty manner and a ready smile. I remembered Gavin mentioning a Josef—that was the friend who’d sent him china from Prague.
“You know him,” Martin added. “He’s the only true friend I have on the Pantheon board.”
Apolinar had said about Gavin always looking for father figures. Mr. Alvarez wanted him to me able to stand on his own, but he came to see that Gavin can only survive in the shadow of a larger man. “Is there a chance he could have been helping Gavin set up his hostile takeover of the board?”
There was dead silence on the other end for a full ten seconds. “No. Of course not.” Martin was almost spluttering.
“What about Svetlana Khorkov?”
“She’s no friend of Gavin’s. She voted against him heading up the Mexican division. She’s prone to temper tantrums, so I’m not sure if she disliked him for a reason or because she could make him cower. You have to take a hard line with her.”
“Does Svetlana or Josef know how sick you are?” I asked.
“I tell Svetlana nothing. She’d use it against me. Josef knows about the cancer, not the rest. He’s the only one on the board who does.”
“I think, if you look into it, you’ll find he was close to Gavin.”
“No, that’s impossible. I made a mistake in trusting Gavin, but Josef—”
“Martin, someone tried to kill me and two of my friends just off the FDR Drive today,” I said.
“What?” Martin sounded like an electrical current had been shot through him. “Lily, are you all right?”
I told him I was and explained, as best I could, what had happened. The news shook him and his breathing became harsh and irregular. I was torn between worry for him and for myself. “That wasn’t Gavin or any of his henchmen,” I told Martin. “Gavin had to be working with someone else.”
“I’ll find out who it is, but I can tell you it isn’t Josef.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“When my father died, Josef was the one who guided me through the business. I couldn’t have done it without him.”
He was like a father figure to Gavin, too, I thought. But what I said was, “Whoever it is, just find out soon. If Bruxton hadn’t been there this afternoon, I think I’d be dead right now.”
CHAPTER 53
Ellis burke’s office was on Union Square West, which made me think it would be some sort of grand edifice. But when I walked into the building on Monday morning, the sleepy attendant barely nodded at me, but he took notice of the cop I was with. The elevator jolted and buzzed on its way up to the thirteenth floor. Its lights blinked a couple of times, but the car finally creaked into place and the door opened. The corridor was grim and gray, and it smelled like old onions. When I got to Ellis’s door, I tried the handle, but it was locked. I knocked and waited, then knocked again.
Finally, I heard footsteps, and then a froggy voice. “Who is it?”
“Lily Moore. I called this morning.”
“Are you alone?”
I gave Bruxton’s friend a pleading look and he rolled his eyes but took a few steps away from the door. “Yes,” I said. There was a long pause, and what sounded like whispering. Then a couple of locks turned and the door opened a crack. A man’s face peered out, his eye just above the brass chain.
“Yeah, that’s Lily Moore all right,” he said.
I couldn’t see who, if anyone, he was talking to. “Are you Ellis Burke? I’m here to talk about Skye McDermott.”
“Oh, I bet you are.” His voice was ominous. “I bet you are.” He looked me over. “Huh.” He shut the door, took the chain off, and opened it again. “You can come in, I guess. But don’t touch anything.”
He stepped back and I moved inside. I saw something move out of the corner of my eye and noticed a pretty blonde in jeans and a black T-shirt with a giant silver skull emblazoned in sequins on it. She was clutching a cell phone. “It’s okay,” Ellis said. “She’s alone. And she probably won’t shoot us.”
“Okay,” she said, pressing a button on the phone, making the screen go dark. She came forward, holding out her hand. “Hi, I’m Manda.”
We shook hands, and I noticed she was wearing a silver goth ring with spikes coming out of it. “My sister would’ve loved that,” I said, forgetting myself for a moment.
“Thank you. I was just admiring your dress.” She smiled, which made her look about a decade younger. She was probably a college student.
“Manda’s one of my interns,” Ellis said, br
inging me back into the present.
The little I had been able to find out about Ellis online told me he was a veteran of print magazines including Fortune, Forbes, and Smart Money, and that he’d left the business to create an online magazine that was such a top-secret project it didn’t even have a name.
“I want to talk to you about the piece Skye was writing for your magazine.”
“I bet you do. I bet you do.” He glanced at Manda. “How about you get us some coffee? From Starbucks, I mean.”
“You can just tell me to go outside,” she said, turning on her high heels rapidly and heading out the door.
“But I really did want coffee,” Ellis whined. He sighed. “Okay, let’s sit down.” He led me over to a metal table that sat in front of a high window. It had matching metal chairs. Everything smelled new and looked as if it had come from Ikea. Ellis sat on one chair, then put his legs up on the one next to it. “So, what brings you here?”
“I want to talk to you about Skye’s story on Pantheon.”
Ellis laughed. “That’s rich. Also lame. Why would I tell you anything?”
I leaned forward. “Because Skye’s dead and she won’t be writing the story.”
“Skye’s dead?” That got his attention. “Since when? Who told you that?”
“I saw her. We were both at the Hotel Cerón in Acapulco. She disappeared on Friday night, and her body was found the next day.”
“She was murdered,” Ellis whispered. “Do they know who did it?”
“No.”
“Making Martin Sklar the next logical suspect.”
“How’s that logical? Skye was working on a story about Pantheon, but all of the dirt she’d dug up was about Gavin Stroud.”
“The money-laundering? Yeah. But there’s a lot on Sklar himself. Like the laws he broke, building a hotel on an archaeological site in Thailand, burying a report about a hotel he built in China being on a toxic dump site, the bribes he’s made to officials around the world.”
Evil in All Its Disguises Page 25