by Lawson, Mike
“What about insider trading? Do you think Castiglia might get involved in something like that?”
“Insider trading. That’s the most bullshit crime they ever came up with. There’s always somebody on the inside that makes money because he knows things the yahoos on the outside don’t know. That’s business.”
“Yeah, maybe so,” DeMarco said. There was no point having a discussion with Tony Benedetto on the ethics of insider trading. “But is that the kind of thing Castiglia would do?”
“I doubt it. Something like that would be too far out of Al’s comfort zone. I mean, insider trading’s a Wall Street crime. Now, those are the real fuckin’ criminals. Those guys rip off billions and you never see any of them in the can. And how come the fuckin’ RICO laws don’t apply to them?”
Sheesh. Even the Mafia hated the crooks on Wall Street. Or maybe they were just jealous of them.
“Anyway, why are you asking about Al and insider trading?”
“Because,” DeMarco said, “his boy Ted is an accomplice in an insider trading swindle, and the SEC and the Department of Justice and one really pissed off politician might be coming after him. And I’m starting to think that Al doesn’t know what Ted did.”
DeMarco thought this because Ted was so desperate to get back the half million that the government had confiscated. If Al Castiglia knew what he was doing, he probably would have just written off the loss in return for Mahoney’s help on the convention center project.
“What do you think Castiglia would do,” DeMarco asked, “if Ted got involved in something like that without getting his approval?”
“Didn’t I mention something about Al cutting people’s heads off? Well, that wasn’t a metaphor.”
DeMarco couldn’t believe the old goombah had just said metaphor.
36
The main reason Emma had agreed to help DeMarco was that the weather forecasters were predicting heavy rains the next few days, and rain would interfere with the things she was planning to do in her yard.
And she was bored.
But she knew DeMarco was holding something back from her—and when she found out what it was, she was going to wring his thick neck. She didn’t buy the story that some congressman was trying squeeze Mahoney. Well, she did buy it in the sense that she knew Mahoney was an unscrupulous bastard, so she wouldn’t be surprised if another unscrupulous bastard had uncovered some shady thing that Mahoney had done and was now trying to exploit the situation. The part she didn’t buy was that whatever was going on wasn’t in some way related to Molly Mahoney. Mahoney would have wanted DeMarco completely focused on his daughter’s problems, and not off pursuing some other issue. But then again, maybe not. Mahoney was so self-centered that maybe he was looking out for Number One as usual, and allowing his daughter’s problems to take a backseat. Whatever the case, she knew DeMarco wasn’t telling her everything.
Regarding Molly, Emma did feel sorry for the young woman. She didn’t know her, but she believed that DeMarco was probably right and that she hadn’t committed a crime. Emma was also intrigued by Richard Praeter’s death, wondering if the New York cops had gotten it wrong and if a murder had actually occurred.
Murder wasn’t boring.
* * *
If either Campbell or McGrath had killed Praeter, they had to get to Manhattan. In Campbell’s case, it was only a four-hour drive from Chevy Chase, Maryland, to New York. He could have left his office at five p.m. and been in New York by nine or ten. He would have had plenty of time to meet Praeter, get a few drinks into him, convince Praeter to take him to his office, and, at approximately one a.m., toss Praeter out a window. Then, if he left immediately after Praeter died, Campbell could have been back at his desk in Maryland the next day, tired but on time for work.
For McGrath it was harder. It was a twelve-hour drive from Myrtle Beach to New York. She went online and saw that an outfit called Spirit Airlines had two-hour nonstop flights from New York to Myrtle Beach, which would make things easier, but flying left an electronic trail. That is, there would be a trail if McGrath flew commercial but not if he chartered a private plane or had a pilot’s license and had his own plane. Shit. She needed Neil.
If Campbell had driven to New York, she knew from her own experience that it was difficult to drive there from Maryland without going on toll roads, and if Campbell had an EZ-Pass tag on his car, there would be a record of him paying the tolls. But she had no way to find out if he’d paid the tolls without access to EZ-Pass’s computers. Likewise for McGrath. Neil could have told her if he’d taken a commercial flight or charged a charter flight to a credit card—but Neil wasn’t available.
She thought for a moment then called a man who had once worked for her at the Pentagon and had later transferred to Homeland Security. She asked him to do her a favor and check with TSA to see if McGrath had taken a flight to New York. She also asked him to flex a little muscle and ask the FAA if McGrath had a pilot’s license; post 9/11, Homeland Security asking about pilot’s licenses was not unusual. Half an hour later he called back and said no on all counts. McGrath didn’t have a license and he hadn’t taken a commercial flight to New York.
So now what should she do? DeMarco felt that of the two men, McGrath was the more likely murderer. He said McGrath gave off a “vibe”—whatever the hell that meant—and that Campbell struck him as being too soft to kill a man. She had no idea if DeMarco was right, but for now she’d trust him, and focus on McGrath. Which meant that what she probably should do next is take a trip to Myrtle Beach and see if she could find out where McGrath was the night Praeter died—but she wasn’t sure she felt like doing that.
Then raindrops began to pelt her kitchen window and she said out loud, “Oh, what the hell.”
* * *
It was a seven-hour drive from McLean, Virginia, to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. A commercial flight would take four hours because there were no nonstop flights from D.C. A private plane, however, could make the trip in an hour or two.
Which meant that Emma was going to have to risk her life.
A man she’d known for years—he flew jets for the Navy in his twenties—had a Cessna he co-owned with two buddies. He didn’t, however, have the money to fly as often as he wanted, and if Emma would pay for the fuel and airport fees, he’d take her anywhere she wanted to go. The problem was that he was no longer in his twenties. He was seventy-two. His eyesight was still good and he was in great shape for a guy his age, but still. . . .
“Ed, I need a ride to Myrtle Beach,” Emma said when she called him. “Would you mind giving me a lift?”
“Hell, yeah,” Ed said. “When do you want to leave?”
“As soon as you can gas up your plane.” Then she thought about the rain. “I mean, I’d like to leave right away, but if the weather . . .”
“Oh, this is nothing,” Ed said. “I’ve flown in weather a hundred times worse than this.”
Yeah, when you were twenty-six, wearing a parachute, and flying a multimillion-dollar military jet.
* * *
Lyle Wallace, Chief of Police in Myrtle Beach, hung up the phone and nodded to Emma. “Well, sister,” he said, “according to Captain Sutter you can walk on water and play the banjo at the same time. He said if I didn’t help you, he might fly down here and give me a whuppin’. So ask your questions.”
Captain Sutter was the ex-military NYPD detective Emma had spoken to in New York about Praeter’s death, and she asked Wallace to call him, knowing Sutter would verify who she was and convince Wallace to cooperate. She doubted, however, that Wallace was worried about anyone giving him “a whuppin’.” He was about the size of a refrigerator.
“It’s like I told you, Chief. I just want to know what you can tell me about Rusty McGrath.”
Wallace grimaced, as though the topic was painful. “Ol’ Rusty,” he said.
“Well, mostly what I can tell you is that the man’s life seems to be devoted to women and play. He’s made a hell of a swath through the ladies down here, both the married and the unmarried. And a couple husbands have gotten downright irate with Rusty, and that’s always turned out bad for the husbands.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you seen Rusty?” Wallace asked.
“Not yet,” Emma said.
“He played linebacker in the pros for a while, and he looks like he could still play the position. He lifts weights, jogs, works out. Anyway, a couple of men have taken, ah, umbrage at Rusty screwing their wives, and Rusty beat the hell out of them. He didn’t start the fights; he just sat there goading these guys on, telling ’em how fine their wives were in the sack, until they took a swing at him. Then he mops up the floor with the poor bastards. I’ll tell you another thing about Rusty, and he and I have had words over this. You know about the big biker week we have down here?”
“No,” Emma said.
“Every spring we get a couple hundred thousand bikers down here. Most of ’em are just good ol’ boys in their forties or fifties who want to pretend they’re Hell’s Angels for a week. I mean you gotta have a pretty good-payin’ job to afford the motorcycles these boys drive, so most of them are just workin’ stiffs who like to ride. Anyway, every spring, for a full week, the town’s full of bikers, raisin’ hell and drinkin’ too much—and every year, regular as salmon spawning, Rusty picks a fight with one of them. He’ll go to a bar, pick out a good-size guy, and stare at his woman or kid the guy about being a pussy dressed in leather, and the guy’ll be forced to take on Rusty to salvage his pride. And just like with those husbands, Rusty cleans the poor bastard’s clock. If it happened once, I could understand it, but like I said, it happens every year. It’s like Rusty just likes to stay in practice puttin’ the hurt on people. I told him if it happens next year, I’m gonna put his ass in jail for assault even if I have to lie about the charges.”
“What does he do when he’s not beating people up?”
“He plays. Goes to ball games, cruises around in that big boat he lives on, hunts, rides ATVs, fishes. Hell, the man just plays. He says he’s some kind of investor and that’s where his money comes from, but I’m not sure he’s telling the truth.”
“Why’s that?”
“I know some guys here, smart guys, businessmen, bankers, those sorts of people. These guys have talked to Rusty about stocks and bonds and such, asking him for advice I guess, and a couple of them have told me that he just doesn’t sound too sharp on the subject. Maybe he’s just being cagey, playing his cards close to his vest, but the banking guys don’t think so. I thought he might have been bringing in dope on that boat of his, so, since he pisses me off, I had one of my narcs tail him off and on for a month. Nada.”
* * *
Emma passed through a stucco archway to enter the apartment complex. It was one of those places where each unit had a balcony overlooking the swimming pool, and it catered to the young and sexually hyperactive. The pool was rimmed with empty beer bottles from the never-ending party.
She rang the doorbell of a third-floor unit. She had to ring twice before a young brunette with a lush figure wearing shorts and a tank top finally opened the door. She was waving her hands in the air; she had just painted her fingernails.
“Yeah?” the brunette said.
“Are you Tammy Doyle?”
DeMarco had told Emma that McGrath’s girlfriend’s first name was Tammy, and Chief Wallace—with a couple of phone calls to bars near the marina where McGrath docked his boat—had been able to come up with her last name and then her address.
“Yeah,” Tammy said. “What . . .”
“I need to talk to you concerning an SEC investigation into a case of insider trading. The Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the attorneys general in three states are involved. I’m assisting them.”
She expected the woman would ask to see her ID—but the airhead didn’t. Instead she said, “Wow. That sounds really heavy.”
“It is. May I come in?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Tammy said, and stepped aside so Emma could enter her apartment. The place was a mess; there were clothes lying everywhere, as if the woman had never heard of a closet or a laundry hamper.
“Do you know a man named Russell McGrath?” Emma asked.
“Rusty? Sure. He’s, like, my boyfriend. Or I think he is anyway.”
Emma didn’t know what that meant.
“Do you know where Mr. McGrath was on Monday and Tuesday of this week? In particular, I’d like to know where he was at one a.m. Tuesday morning.”
“Why do you wanna know? Has Rusty done something?”
“Ms. Doyle, you really don’t want to obstruct a federal investigation.”
“Obstruct! I was just . . .”
“Do you know where he was Monday and Tuesday?” Emma repeated.
“No. We had a fight on Saturday and I haven’t spoken to him since then. He was being an asshole.”
“So you haven’t seen him since last Saturday?”
“That’s right.”
“Have you talked to him on the phone since then?”
“No. I was really pissed. I wasn’t about to call him, and he didn’t call me. The jerk.”
* * *
Tammy Doyle had seemed like a mental midget, but she was an intellectual colossus compared to Gary Fosket, the man who managed the marina where Rusty McGrath moored his boat. Emma suspected that contributing to Fosket’s dullness were both alcohol and marijuana. She could smell the marijuana in his office and the alcohol on his breath.
It took a while for Fosket to recall the days Emma was asking about but he finally did, using a baseball game as a point of reference. “Oh, yeah, right,” he said. “Monday the Braves played Tampa. One of them interleague games. Cost me twenty bucks, that asshole reliever they brought in in the eighth.”
“So did you see Mr. McGrath that day or the next day?” Emma asked for the third time.
“No,” Fosket said. “He was gone both those days.”
“Gone where?”
“I dunno. He took his boat out. I gassed him up Sunday morning and helped him load a few supplies on board. He said he was going down the Intercoastal, just gettin’ away for a couple of days.”
Emma was sure McGrath hadn’t taken his boat to New York. Most powerboats don’t cruise faster than about ten knots, and it would have taken several days for McGrath to travel by boat to New York City. Her next thought was that maybe he had a friend like her friend Ed, a friend with his own airplane, and maybe McGrath met his friend at some nearby marina. But why take his boat to meet his friend? Why not drive? Whatever the case, she wanted to find out where McGrath was on the day Praeter was killed as that would give her a starting point for tracing his movements.
“Do you have a map showing marinas fifty miles south and north of here?” Emma asked.
“Oh, man,” Fosket said, spreading his arms to indicate the chaos in his office. “I must have a couple charts around here somewhere, but it’d take me forever to find ’em.”
* * *
Emma was seated at a bar near the marina sipping a glass of bad white wine. She didn’t know it, but it was the same bar where DeMarco had sat on his trip to Myrtle Beach. And, just as DeMarco had done, she was sitting there looking at McGrath’s boat.
As she drank, she tried to figure out what she’d learned about McGrath. Nothing useful, she finally concluded. Just that he was a womanizer living off his investments and had a mean streak. Regarding where he’d been the night Richard Praeter died, she had no idea and didn’t know who else to ask, other than McGrath himself. All she knew was what the marina manager had told her: that McGrath had said he was taking a trip on the Intercoastal Wat
erway.
Emma took out her phone and called a lady who was a vice admiral in the Coast Guard; she and Emma had once served together on a counterterrorism task force. Emma asked her if it was possible to check public marinas on the Intercoastal Waterway in the vicinity of Myrtle Beach to see if McGrath had been docked at any of them the day Praeter was killed. She described McGrath’s boat, gave the admiral its name and hull number, and said as big as it was, someone might remember it.
The admiral said if he docked at a marina and paid for a berth, the marina should have a record, although marina record keeping could be pretty spotty. She’d have someone on her staff e-mail the marinas; marina owners were typically very responsive when the Coast Guard asked for something. On the other hand, the admiral said, there were a lot of places where McGrath could have just anchored his boat and taken a dinghy ashore. She’d get back to Emma.
Lastly, she called Chief Wallace and asked him to e-mail law enforcement agencies along the Intercoastal Waterway to see if any of them had encountered McGrath. She knew it was a long shot, but she couldn’t think of anything else to do. Chief Wallace agreed, but Emma could tell he was beginning to tire of doing her favors.