by Dee Lloyd
“No one but Matt’s family has seen me in days,” she retorted.
“I wish Bronwyn hadn’t caught on. She’s been one of Jon’s strongest GEL supporters. At least, I’m the person she’d probably contact if she were going to call. What did you find in the files, Matt?”
“I located one of the bank accounts this morning. In the Grand Cayman Royal Bank. That was what the Gran C.R.B. referred to. Apparently, Casen stayed at the Hilton there from the second to the fourth of October with Lucy Spadafore under the name of Glenlivet.”
“Yes-s,” Walt said. “And niece Lucy is Sal Gerardo’s secretary. Maybe we’ve got a line on something here. Oh, I cleared up another one of the memos last night. I took Norma Renton out to dinner.”
“Jon’s Norma Renton?” Reenie asked.
“The ‘new’ phone number on one of the notes was hers. After a couple of mega martinis, she made it clear she was extremely upset about your engagement. She thought she had the inside track with Jon. She made some references to ‘the chances she’d taken for him’ and ‘promises he’d made.’ I think we could convince her to make a deal and testify about his skimming of the GEL contributions.”
“Can you talk to her today?” Matt asked. “If you can get me a set of the official GEL books and an up-to-date list of current projects that GEL is involved in, I think I can give you what you need to tie Jon Casen up so tightly he’ll never get loose.”
“What time frame are we talking here?” Walt asked quickly.
“Maybe two or three days after I get the numbers and locations.”
“You’re not serious.” Walt was obviously trying not to sound too elated. “You figure you can locate the money that quickly?”
The conversation veered into speculation about offshore bank accounts in the Channel Islands as well as the Caribbean, bogus contracts with international construction companies, and possibly a Hong Kong shell company with ghost board members. Reenie hung up. She was curious about how those things fit into the case against Jon, but Matt didn’t have time to explain it to her right now. Maybe later - if they had a later.
For the rest of Saturday and all day Sunday, Matt raised his head from the computer only long enough to eat when Reenie insisted on it. He had a couple of reviving hot showers and snatched a total of about four hour’s sleep. Sunday, he received an enormous fax from Walt containing GEL’s financial records for the past two years and a list of GEL’s current projects. Apparently, Norma was cooperating. Reenie didn’t ask. Matt hardly uttered a word unless it was on the phone to Walt or Ryan.
After overhearing Matt’s side of one of his short, cryptic conversations with his friend in Washington, Reenie could not help asking, “How did you convince Ryan to give you so much information without knowing exactly whom it is you’re investigating?”
“Ryan’s been told to give me access to any data banks I need on this. I never heard of that kind of broad clearance for an outsider before,” Matt told her. “Walt must have a lot of clout.”
By Monday afternoon, Matt’s tired eyes could take no more.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he said, standing up from his chair and stretching mightily. “I have to take a break. Let’s get out into the fresh air for a while.
“I’ve almost got him.” There was a grim smile on Matt’s lean face. “This morning, I correlated the last of the figures that Walt sent me with a file in Jon’s laptop. I can prove that only a small fraction of the money that was supposed to go into starting the Shanghai harbor cleanup ever got there. And that several construction companies GEL deals with regularly have never existed. Walt was right. Casen is not particularly clever, just devious. The trail he left was followable.”
He scowled at the computer. “Another few hours should put the last nails in Casen’s coffin. No,” he said, shaking his head regretfully. “My eyes won’t take another minute of staring at that screen this afternoon. And there’s no point in getting Walt’s people mobilized until I get one last data file from Ryan. That will verify the location Jon’s shell company does its banking.”
“So you figure they’ll arrest Jon tomorrow?”
“Four o’clock tomorrow afternoon. The IRS is conducting simultaneous IRS raids on Casen’s and Gerardo’s offices and homes. They’ll get Casen at the same time. The first major planning meeting of his election campaign takes place in his constituency office at four. Walt says that’s one meeting Casen won’t skip.”
Reenie got up from the couch where she’d been reading and went over to him. Matt wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a welcoming hug. His lips pressed hers lightly at first. When she opened to him, he took her mouth in a kiss that left her breathless.
“Oh, love, I needed that.” He looked deeply into her eyes and hesitated. “Fresh air,” he said, shaking his head regretfully. “We both need brisk fresh air.”
Reenie reached up, smoothed the frown lines on his forehead. Maybe a good walk in the open air would release some of the tension of waiting.
“Okay,” she said. “Quick escape time.”
She allowed him to pull her along with him, their feet thundering on the wooden steps as they raced laughing down the outside stairway to the Jeep. She was beginning to feel lighthearted already.
“Where to, Milady?” he asked.
“Wherever our fancy takes us,” she replied, gripping the edge of her seat as he gunned the motor.
The breeze from the open windows revived both of them. Matt turned to look at her, a heavy lock of his brown hair drifting across his eyes.
“Maybe I should take time to get a haircut soon,” he said.
“I kind of like it long,” she said honestly.
He gave her a heart-stopping smile. “I’d like to see you with long hair. And blue eyes. I miss your marvelous eyes when you cover them up during the day.”
She wondered if that day would ever come.
“Would you like to stop and walk a bit?” Matt asked. “There’s a nice lookout over the lake up ahead.”
Reenie looked at the countryside they were passing through. She hadn’t realized until that moment that they were only about ten minutes from the turn-off to the cabin she’d been trying so hard to reach two weeks ago.
“There’s a place I’d like to show you,” she said. “Remember I mentioned that my Dad left me a cabin north of Higgins Lake?”
“Just give me directions.”
A few miles further through the forested hills of the Uplands ski country, Reenie told him to turn off the highway onto a narrow dirt road. When they reached a driveway marked only by a large boulder that had been painted white, she announced, “There it is. But don’t turn in. I haven’t been here since May and there may be some trees down. Getting back out could be a problem. The driveway winds around a lot because Dad didn’t want to see the road from the cabin. We can park on the winter snowplow turn-around that’s just around the bend of the road and walk back to the cabin.”
Matt parked the Jeep in the large clearing where the road came to an abrupt end. He took a deep breath of fresh air.
“Yes!” he said, letting it out slowly. He took Reenie’s hand as they began the short walk back to the white boulders.
“Smell that air!” Reenie cried, inhaling deeply. “Mmm, someone in the area has a fire on. There’s nothing like the smell of wood smoke on a fall day.”
They could have been any couple out enjoying the countryside on a crisp autumn day. Matt felt a sharp pang of resentment at having to be constantly alert for a lurking menace. He made himself concentrate on the beauty of the hilly terrain that surrounded them.
“You do any skiing?” he asked. There were so many details he didn’t know about her life. Their relationship had skipped the dating stage that would have given him the chance to get to know her. Reenie had become the most important thing in his life and he had no idea even what kind of books she read, what kind of movies she liked, if she enjoyed dancing. Suddenly, he wanted to know all those things.
/> “I grab every chance I can to get to the slopes,” she replied. “But the lodge is busy in ski season. I come here mostly in the spring and this time of year. It’s a bit cold for swimming but I walk and do a little fishing.”
“I didn’t know there was a lake here,” he said.
“Mom and Dad bought the whole shoreline before I was born when land was still cheap in this area,” Reenie said. “The lake’s small but deep and spring-fed. There’s a wooden rowboat under the porch that I use for fishing. You can still catch the occasional bass or walleye.”
“I’d like to try that next spring,” Matt said. “I haven’t been fishing for years.”
“You figure you’ll still be here in the spring?”
The question was asked casually, but her quick glance told him that the answer mattered to her. He must have told her he planned to stay on at the marina. Of course, he hadn’t promised.
This was the kind of moment he usually felt as if silken tentacles were winding themselves around his neck. He’d left Washington to escape that feeling. This time it didn’t happen. The prospect of looking at a future with Reenie was anything but suffocating. Maybe it was the tedium of his relationship with Liz that he’d fled from as much as his government job. Matt had always believed he moved on from one challenge to another. Maybe Pete was right about him. Maybe he’d been moving away from the last one.
“Can’t see why I wouldn’t be here,” he replied, as if he hadn’t just had an unpleasant revelation about himself.
They passed the white boulders and took a few steps down the overgrown driveway. Suddenly, Matt squeezed her hand hard and stopped short.
“Look there,” he whispered, pointing at the leaf-covered surface of the driveway.
Reenie leaned over to look more closely.
“What? I don’t see anything,” she said, puzzled by his intensity.
“See the way the fallen leaves are crushed together?” he said. “And the grass?” He indicated some bent stalks. “There’s been a vehicle down this road recently. Maybe even today.”
She saw, all too well. No one had any legitimate reason to be on her property. There were no friendly neighbors to check on it for her. Damn it! This was supposed to be her haven.
“We’d better find out if they’ve left,” she said, her voice tight.
Matt led the way cautiously down the long, winding road. The woods were quiet. Only the sound of the wind in the tops of the pine trees and the distant harsh call of a crow broke the silence. Matt’s rubber-soled shoes made virtually no noise as he moved along the track the tires had left. Reenie wished she had the same skill. She was painfully aware of the snap of every little twig and the crackle of every dry leaf she stepped on. Her heartbeat was loud in her ears.
Finally, they rounded a corner of the steep, overgrown driveway. Below them were the small landlocked lake and the compact log cabin which sat at the edge of a clearing large enough to park a couple of vehicles.
Reenie was horrified to see a faint plume of smoke rising from the fireplace chimney. And the large, dark blue sedan with heavy chrome trim that was parked in the center of the clearing was all too familiar. Wilson had found the cabin.
She whirled around and ran as fast as she could back up the driveway. Matt was close behind her.
When they reached the Jeep, Matt placed a cautionary finger on his lips. She listened intently but could hear no one in pursuit.
“Don’t close your door.” Matt’s whisper was low but his order crisp.
He started the engine, eased the machine onto the road, and drove at an excruciatingly slow speed until he figured they were out of earshot of the cabin.
He stopped for a moment to close his door. Reenie did the same.
“Nobody behind us,” he said, checking the rear vision mirrors. “Let’s move.”
“That was Wilson’s car.” Reenie’s voice was a hollow whisper. “They’ve found me.”
Matt swore.
“I thought it looked like the car that we saw at the lodge the other night,” he said. He was obviously trying to sound matter-of-fact, but she noticed that he was pressing down harder on the accelerator. “All we know for sure is that they’ve found the cabin. That doesn’t mean they know where you are, sweetheart.”
“But it does mean that Jon knows I’m in the area.” A horrifying thought struck her. “Unless Wilson is working for that Gerardo gangster.”
“Reenie, we’ll get them first. All we have to do is keep you safe for another twenty-four hours. I’ll call Walt and see if he can move the time of the raids forward.”
He looked over at her. His lips were pressed so tightly together that they looked bloodless. They both knew they had run out of time.
“Hold on, sweetheart,” he muttered, glancing again at the rear vision mirror. “They’re not following us. We’ll be home in a few minutes. And now we know where they are.”
Chapter Eighteen
In the washroom off his private office at the GEL headquarters in Lansing, Jon Casen was giving himself a pep talk. He set his regular features in his most statesmanlike expression and produced a benign smile for the mirror. He brushed back an unruly lock of heavy blond hair and smoothed the tension from corners of his steely blue eyes. Yes. That looked good.
“So a few things have gone wrong, Jonathan,” he said in a rich mellow voice. “The important things are still on track.”
He hadn’t made mistakes. The positive force that powered his course from one success to another had faltered for an instant. That momentary lapse had cost him Danny and involved him in this frustrating search for Maura. Sal was upset. But old Glad still thought the sun shone out of his posterior. Poor old girl thought he was her ticket to the governor’s mansion. She still had an amazing amount of influence, but she’d just about served her purpose. The governor’s office! What a joke. There was a lot more money floating around some of the big boards and commissions. And he was going to get some of it.
Glad really came through yesterday. A genuine grin appeared in the mirror. He gave the grin a touch more tooth. Better.
It was getting harder and harder to direct old Glad’s mental vagaries but last night, she’d remembered that her son Taylor had left Maura “his cabin…somewhere near Houghton Lake…or Higgins Lake…that area somewhere..”
That hadn’t quite panned out yet. Wilson had found the place easily through the property tax rolls, but, after getting out there this morning, he said it didn’t look as if anyone had been near the cabin in months. Jon had a hunch that Maura would turn up there eventually, so he’d told Wilson to stay at the cabin until she did.
He tilted his head at a cocky angle that made him look confident and ready to tackle the world, winked at his reflection, and left the washroom.
Ten minutes later, Maura Irene Taylor Fitzpatrick was delivered to him - not on a platter, but in the bundles of Good Earth League monthly newsletters that had arrived in the office to be distributed. Almost filling the front page were two photographs. One was the studio photo of Maura that had been circulating for two weeks. The other was a smaller one of a laughing dark-haired woman who purported to be Reenie Kelly. They were the same woman.
The caption under the second picture stated that Reenie Kelly of Hanson’s Marina had made the counter-full of cakes and pastries for the recent GEL fundraiser. The editor had gushed that the picture had been taken by Bronwyn Cooper’s seven-year-old son.
He had her! The positive force was back - surrounding him, flowing through him again. Jubilantly, he dialed the number of Wilson’s cellular phone.
Wilson and that bodyguard he’d hired, Vince, could surprise the bitch at the marina. She couldn’t know about the newsletter picture yet. It wouldn’t be distributed until late tomorrow morning.
He told Wilson the news. “Tell me about the cabin,” he commanded.
Wilson made a few disparaging remarks about the furnishings then got to the important information. “And there’s an old rowboat. The la
ke’s pretty small but big enough to dump her in.”
“Good!” Things were going his way. He’d find out what Maura had done with the pictures and files Danny had threatened him with, make sure no one else knew about it, and be done with the whole mess. He could proceed with the life he was meant to have. “No screwing up this time, Wilson.” If he had anyone else he could trust with this job, he’d get rid of Wilson. Any idiot knew Danny’s body should have been weighted down so that it would never float. “This time it has to look like suicide. Poor Maura is so depressed and anxious. She needs to end it all,” Jon explained.
Jon wished that were true but his troublesome fiancée wasn’t going to be that accommodating.
“Here’s what you do.” He laid the plans out step by step. “Get the lay of the land at the marina right away. We need to know what kind of security they have. Send Vince in to look around. She won’t recognize him. Then pick me up at the Mount Pleasant airport. I’m making sure this is done right. You’ll get her later tonight.”
If only Wilson had Walt Ames’ brains, he wouldn’t have to spell out every little detail. However, with Wilson’s own worries about Sal, Jon had the feeling he’d be a better man to have at his back in this situation. Walt Ames was clever, but Jon wasn’t sure what he was thinking all the time. All in all, it was smarter to leave him in Lansing to babysit Glad and prepare for the constituency meeting. Ames was good at both.
All Jon would have left to deal with, after tonight, was the fading grand dame of Michigan politics. And he wouldn’t need her much longer. Yes, his plans made, Jon was in a much better frame of mind.
Chapter Nineteen
“Gran must have remembered where Dad’s cabin was,” Reenie said. “Maybe Wilson is only checking to see if I’ve been there.”
Reenie was whistling in the dark. It seemed to Matt that the smoke rising from the chimney more likely indicated that Wilson Foster and who knows how many others had settled in to wait for her there. Thank Heaven for Hazel Leigh’s decrepit boat trailer! Reenie would have been a sitting duck at the cabin.