by Josh Karnes
Chapter 29
Isla de Vieques, Puerto Rico
While the Grady family dutifully killed time flipping through pictures of others who had been on Joseph's diving tour, Special Agent Morales continued her investigation. Lieutenant Ramos was heading up the ground search for Joseph Grady, coordinating with detectives from the main island and Culebra. He had that search well in hand.
Morales had been digging in more detail about the Gradys financial situation after Ortiz had interviewed James Grady. Ortiz shared his hunch that James was hiding something but that it wasn't critical to the case, but they had to be sure. Morales was more suspicious, so she was digging.
First, she found their enormous debt, just a few years ago, that was paid off in one big payment. James had told Ortiz that this was some kind of compensation for a job he did. But he didn't show this much income on his tax return that year, or the next year. And he never had this much in his bank account.
Then there was the house. The Gradys were living in a rental house when they paid off the three hundred grand. But they bought a house just a month later. And not just any house. This place was nearly a half a million dollars. No mortgage. Cashier's check. In a six-week period, the Grady family went from living paycheck to paycheck, drowning in debt and crammed into a shoebox rent house, to being nearly debt-free, living in a McMansion with no house payments, and had dropped over three quarters of a million dollars that no record showed they earned. That was odd. So Allison Morales dug deeper.
She didn't have to dig much until she found the source of the money: a numbered account in a Swiss bank. It is a cliché for a reason. She found the account number but could not get the balance or positively identify the account holder. She assumed it was James's account, but it could be empty or have a billion dollars in it for all she knew. If she could positively link this money to criminal activity, then they might be able to make a request and get information out of the Swiss bankers but that was a long shot. And of course, there was no direct evidence of criminal activity.
The next link in the chain was known associates. The Grady family were extremely boring people. The boys went to school and had normal friends with other normal boring middle class families. Neither James nor Melissa had any particularly interesting friends. Not a single criminal record among any of them. When looking for coworkers relationships, Morales hit pay dirt: a Federal warrant had been issued for James's former coworker Tim Chandler for tax evasion. Chandler had executed a short series of extremely lucky forex trades with a net of a few million dollars that he didn't report to the IRS.
The specifics of this event didn't make much sense. Chandler was not a forex trader, and as far as she could tell, this was the one and only time he did any forex trading. In fact, he opened an account and then just a few days later closed it after making these trades all on the same day. On the one hand, maybe he was the rare good gambler. He opened a forex account thinking he was going to learn to trade and turn it into a post-retirement career or supplementary income like the day-traders of the nineties, but then he hit the jackpot a couple of times in a row and decided not to press his luck, cashed in his chips and shut it down.
On the other hand, maybe there was some kind of crime: insider trading, illegal tip, gaming the system somehow, and he quit before he could get caught. It was either a well-crafted plan or an astonishing run of good luck. In either case, it was just too much of a coincidence to brush it off. Just a few days after Chandler's lucky streak, James suddenly paid off his debts and then a month or so later bought a house, all with money from a numbered account. Morales imagined a way these pieces could fit together, even though there was no hard evidence.
Ortiz walked in the door of the Vieques police station just before lunchtime. He noticed the frazzled-looking Grady family gazing into a computer monitor at passport photos, and he dismissed his impulse to find out what they were up to. Busywork, he figured. Morales must have set it up. As he turned into the conference room, Morales rose and closed the door behind him. “Any luck on the island?” she asked.
“Well, yes and no. They have a pretty serious operation going on there, but their boss man, Larry Duncan, tried to pass off a story that they are just doing research on GPS accuracy. It sounded like B.S. to me so I pressed him on it, and he basically admitted that there is more to it but he wouldn't tell me more without a court order. He threatened to call their lawyers and try and get someone to shut us down from above.”
“He said that?” Morales asked.
“Not in so many words, but that was the implication. He mentioned trade secrets and possible national security. I recorded the conversation on my phone in my pocket and took a few notes. I'll write it up in a little while. One good thing, though. He did offer to lend us a couple of his guys and whatever equipment we might need including sea floor scanning equipment for us to do a physical search of El Pliegue and the island's coastline. I get the impression he wants his boys to keep us off of the scent of what they are really doing on the island, but it's worthwhile to follow up. Keep those guys cooperating and talking, maybe we can crack the shell and get more information out of them without having to get a judge on the line.”
“Yeah, that sounds like good news.”
“Anything new here?” Ortiz asked.
“I think I may have dug up the money thing with James Grady. Here's the theory. James's buddy from work, Tim Chandler, runs some forex scheme two years ago where he makes about four and a half million dollars in one day. Opened an account one day, does a couple of trades all on one day just a couple of days later, then shuts it down. All of the trades were winners. Incredible luck. Turns two thousand bucks into four million and change in just one day.”
Ortiz raised his eyebrows and whistled. “How is that possible?” he asked.
“A scam? Luck? Should have bought a Powerball ticket? Who knows.”
“Okay, so what does this have to do with James Grady?”
“I'm getting to that. Let me finish. So this Chandler guy put half of the four and a half million dollars in a numbered bank account, and the same day another numbered account is opened and the same amount is deposited, presumably James Grady's account. Just a few days after this all goes down, James Grady pays off his settlement debt, and then a month later he gets another four hundred and change to buy a house.”
“Again, how is Grady involved?”
“I'm guessing Grady paid that three hundred grand and paid for the house both from withdrawals from that second numbered account.”
“Coincidence?”
“No way. Can't be. Too close.”
“Do you have anything solid?” Ortiz asked.
“No, unfortunately. It's all conjecture.”
“How do we know about this Chandler guy?”
“Federal warrant for tax evasion. He didn't report the four mil. Once the warrant hit, Chandler got lost. Nobody's seen him since.”
“What about Chandler's numbered account?”
“Empty,” she said, making a gesture like an umpire calling a base runner safe. “My guess is he moved the money somewhere else. We could probably find it. If I look.”
“So we really have no proof. Not even Chandler. We don't know whether that was Grady's account, and even if it was, we don't know if it a result of the same trade as Chandler—”
“We don't know that yet.” Morales insisted.
“Okay, yet, but even if we did, this is not proof of a crime. Even if James Grady did get money from Chandler's forex deal to pay off his debts, it's not ill-gotten gains. They just have Chandler for tax evasion, and he's not even been convicted or even arrested yet. This is nothing, Allison. Only possible thing we'd have is if, and I mean if, we could link all of this together, then James may also owe some taxes on the, what, seven fifty? That's not our job.”
“But—” Morales started before Ortiz cut her off.
“And, sounds unlikely that Chandler would give James the whole four mil. So he's probably li
ving on part of it. Costs a lot to live on the run. So the seven fifty may have been all James ever got. Even if he had the whole four mil, there's only three and change left. That's not a kidnapping motive. This is not worth chasing down. Sounds to me like what we've done—with circumstantial evidence that depends on a partnership between James and Chandler that we have not yet established—is eliminate drugs, guns or any other criminal motive from the potential kidnapping case.”
Special Agent Morales considered this. She didn't like it, but Ortiz was right. Half of Chandler's take on his forex deal, minus the house and the settlement, was not nearly enough for a kidnapping motive. And if this was their source of money, then it wasn't some big criminal enterprise. There were plenty of questions and possibilities but the chances that they would turn up something juicy were slim. “Yeah, Ray,” she said. “I guess you're right.”
“You probably solved the riddle, and if there was a crime there to investigate then you'd be well on your way. But we have to find a lost kid, so all that matters in this is whether it is a kidnapping motive. Sounds to me like James Grady's money, however shady it is, is not the type to attract kidnappers. You got this in the file?”
“Yeah. I put the theory in the file, possible connection to Chandler, all that.”
“If we don't turn anything else up, then we may dig some more in this. For now, let's just put it on the back burner.”
“Right,” she said, looking at her shoes.
“You got the family looking at mug shots?”
“They showed up here this morning gung-ho to do something, so I have them looking at the passport photos of the other people from the dive tour to see if they recognize anyone.”
“Not going to do any good. I guess there's a slim chance they find someone and we can get some info, but most likely...”
“Yeah, it was just something to keep them busy and out of our hair.”
Just then Ortiz had an idea of how to kill two birds with one stone. “Come with me,” he instructed Morales. She followed him into the office where the coastline poring over pictures.
“Hey guys,” Ortiz said with a chipper inflection. “Find anything in there?”
“No,” Eli replied. “We recognize most of these people but none stuck out as having talked to Joseph.”
“Yeah, that happens. No big deal. But there's something else we need you to do.”
“Oh?” Melissa said, perking up.
“Yeah. I just got back from Isla Roca. Talked to the head of the project there. He offered to assign two of his guys to help us search the island's shore and El Pliegue, and also offered up boats and other equipment we might need. I'd like to send you guys out there to take him up on his offer. Get our detective from Culebra,” he snapped his fingers a few times to recall his name.
“Vega,” Morales said.
“Detective Vega. Get him to go along with you, help direct the search effort. You guys can comb the area where you last saw him while we continue looking here, in Fajardo and on Culebra. What do you say?”
“When do we leave?” James said.
“As soon as I can round up Detective Vega,” Ortiz said.
“Then sign us up,” James said. He was sick of the useless task looking through these photos. They needed to be in the fight.