Cold Wind jp-11

by C. J. Box

  “Thank you for your time,” Joe said, standing. “I appreciate the background, but I know you’re busy.”

  Rulon assessed Joe through heavy-lidded eyes. He said, “It’s good to see you, Joe. I still think you’re a man I can count on, despite everything.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You and me, we’re not through,” Rulon said. “I still have two years to go, and I may need to call on you again. I’ll work it out with the new director when he’s hired. Or she’s hired. Will you respond if I ask?”

  Joe hesitated, and said, “Sure.”

  “As long as it’s within your boundaries,” Rulon said sarcastically. “You ought to get a bumper sticker that says, ‘What Would Dudley Do-Right Do?’ Call it W-W-D-D-R-D. That has a ring to it.”

  Joe nodded. “That’s the second time in two days I’ve been called that.”

  “Maybe there’s something to it,” Rulon said. “But hell, that’s one reason I like you, Joe.”

  Joe shrugged.

  “But like I said, I need more yes-men in the future.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Have a good day, Joe,” Rulon said, “and my best to your lovely family.” He always signed off that way, Joe thought. As if they’d just had a conversation about the weather.

  “Yours, too, sir.”

  Rulon said, “Tell Coon to cooperate with you or he’ll be hearing from me. And he doesn’t like to hear from me.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Joe said.

  FBI Special Agent Chuck Coon said, “Yeah, we’ve got him. But why should I let you talk to Orin Smith?”

  “I told you,” Joe said. “He may be able to shed some light on a case I’m working on. As far as I know, it’s unrelated to why you’ve got him here in the first place.”

  They were sitting at a long empty conference table on the third floor of the Federal Center in Cheyenne. To get in, Joe had had to leave his weapons, phone, keys, and metal in a locker at the ground floor security entrance. He couldn’t help but contrast the difference between getting in to see Chuck Coon and his morning meeting with the governor.

  “What happened to your face?” Coon asked.

  “I tangled with a motivated slacker,” Joe said.

  “I didn’t know there were such creatures.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “When was the last time you saw Nate Romanowski?”

  Joe stifled a grin because of the way Coon had slipped that in.

  “I haven’t seen him for over a year,” Joe said. “In fact, I wish I knew where he was right now.”

  “Don’t tell me that,” Coon said. “Jeez, Joe. We’re still after him, you know.”

  Joe nodded.

  Coon had not lost his boyish features, although his close-cropped brown hair was beginning to sparkle with gray from running the Cheyenne bureau since his predecessor had been kicked up the ladder in the bureaucracy. Coon was incapable of not looking like a federal agent, Joe thought. He wore an ill-fitting sport coat over a white shirt and tie. Coon seemed like the kind of guy who would wear his credentials on a lanyard in the shower and while playing with his kids. In Joe’s own experience and from what he’d heard from other law enforcement throughout the state, Coon was an honorable man doing a professional job. There was no doubt that he served a distant federal master, but in the two years he’d spent as supervisor, he’d built bridges between the myriad conflicting city, county, state, and federal agencies that overlapped confusingly throughout Wyoming. Joe liked him, and when they weren’t butting heads, they discussed their families and Coon’s new interest in archery.

  “So why is he in lockup?” Joe asked.

  “Ponzi scheme,” Coon said. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it. He’s been running a good one for the last two years right here out of Cheyenne. Kind of a high-tech pyramid scheme, where he convinced investors who wanted to shelter their money from taxes to invest in his operation. He claimed he’d figured out a way to buy hard assets like gold and real estate through a legit offshore company. That way, he told them, they could shelter their cash so the government wouldn’t get it and at the same time hedge their wealth against declines in the dollar. It was pretty sophisticated.”

  Joe nodded.

  “There’s a lot more of these kinds of scams these days,” Coon said. “The rich are running scared. Some of them will do just about anything not to have to pay up to fifty percent of their income in taxes. So when they hear about an outfit like Orin Smith’s, they get reckless when they should know better.”

  Joe said, “So he actually paid them dividends?”

  “At first,” Coon said. “It was a classic Bernie Madoff-like Ponzi scheme, but with a twist. The first few rich folks who sent him cash to shelter did receive dividend checks based on the increase in the price of gold or whatever. And they told their friends for finder’s fees that Smith kicked back. But as more and more wealthy people sent him money, the dividend checks got smaller for the first investors and nonexistent for the later ones.”

  “What was the twist?” Joe asked.

  Coon shook his head in a gesture that was part disgust and part admiration. “Unlike Madoff, Smith never even pretended to be aboveboard. He bragged on his website and in his emails that he operated outside the system. That way, he claimed, he and his investors were performing kind of a noble act in defense of free enterprise. He called it a ‘capital strike.’ The people who sent him money knew he wasn’t going to report to the SEC or anybody else. The endgame was that when and if the tax rates ever went back down, the investors would ask him to sell off their assets and return the cash. For Orin Smith, it worked pretty well for a while.”

  “So how’d you catch him?” Joe asked. “If no one was willing to turn him in because they would be admitting they’d done something criminal.”

  Coon said, “Guess.”

  Joe thought for a moment, then said, “A divorce.”

  “Bingo. A trophy wife in Montana and her seventy-year-old husband split the sheets. They jointly owned a high-end ski resort where all the members were multi-millionaires, and she wanted half of everything. When she found out he’d invested most of what they had with Smith’s company, she went ballistic and reported it to the Bureau in Montana. It was child’s play for us to trace the IP addresses through all the firewalls right here to Cheyenne. And it didn’t take us long to guess who was responsible, since Orin Smith has been running scams here for years.”

  Joe sat back. “I don’t get it,” he said. “This is the same guy who was the head honcho of a legitimate wind energy company worth millions? And he’s been on your radar for a while.”

  “So,” Coon said, “you want to meet him?”

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  “I’m going to sit in. If he says he doesn’t want to talk, that’s it. It’s over. And he may want his lawyer present. If that’s the case, you’ll need to wait. And if your questioning goes anywhere it shouldn’t, I’m going to shut you down. Are we clear?”

  Joe winced, but he couldn’t see that he had a choice. “We’re clear.”

  28

  Nate Romanowski pulled his Jeep into an empty space in long-term parking at the Jackson Hole Airport and checked his wristwatch: 10:30 a.m.

  The sawtooth profile of the Grand Teton Mountains dominated the western horizon. It was a clear cool day with a bite in the air and there was a light dusting of snow on the top of two of the peaks: Teewinot and the Grand. River cottonwoods and mountain ash shouldering up against the Snake River in the valley were already turning gold. Out on the highway, a pair of bull moose were meandering from the sagebrush flats across the blacktop causing a backup in traffic that he’d simply driven around in the ditch. Since it was the only airport in the country located within a national park, getting there was a visual extravaganza, but he’d seen it all so many times and he had other things on his mind.

  He flipped down the visor and looked at himself in the small mirror the way a painter inspects his
work to determine if he’s finished or more touch-ups are required. He hardly recognized himself. His hair was black and short-cropped, and his eyes were brown due to a pair of tinted contact lenses. He looked out through a pair of narrow black-framed hipster glasses. He wore a black polo shirt under a chocolate brown jacket (with an obligatory pink ribbon pinned to the lapel), chinos, and lightweight hiking shoes straight out of the box. Nate looked thoroughly Jackson-like, he thought. He’d look right at home on the streets of Jackson, Aspen, Vail, or Sun Valley. Like all the other politicos, hedge fund managers, and Hollywood players with second or third homes in mountain resorts across the West.

  After hiding his.500 in a lockbox under the seat and slipping a new wallet into the back of his chinos and a black leather passport case into the breast pocket of his jacket, he topped himself off with an Australian-style brimmed hat and he looked so authentic, he thought, that he fought an urge to punch himself out.

  The ticket agent behind the counter wore blonde dreadlocks and barely looked up when he said he wanted to go to Chicago on the next flight. She looked at his ID and said, “Mr. Abbey, there is one seat left on United 426 at 1:36 p.m. That will get you back home to Chicago at 7:14 p.m. with a change in Denver.”

  “Great,” he said.

  “Are you checking any luggage?”

  “No. Just this carry-on.”

  “And will you be using a credit card today?” she asked.

  “Just cash,” he said.

  She barely looked up as he handed over eight one-hundred-dollar bills. She gave him forty dollars in change.

  The ticket printer hummed and she handed him documents for Phillip Abbey of 2934 West Sunnyside Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.

  He strolled toward security and the white-clad TSA officers who seemed as bored with their jobs as the ticket agent. It was a common attitude he’d found in resort towns, he thought: Everybody who actually had to work couldn’t wait to get off their shift and get outside and recreate in their chosen interest, whether it be hiking, mountain-bike riding, skiing, whatever. They were marking time, and their jobs existed solely to fund their time off. They had no emotional investment in the companies that employed them or the community where they lived. The ticket agent had no ambition to move up in the airline industry, and the TSA agents were there because all the post office jobs were filled.

  No one cared who he was or what he looked like, and the elite crowds that washed through the airport daily had no desire to build lasting relationships with the low-level employees within. It was, he thought, the perfect airport in the area to arrive at or depart from without raising an eyebrow.

  Plus, it would get him quickly to Chicago.

  Phillip was for Phillip Glasier, the author of Falconry and Hawking, one of the ten books he’d once listed to take with him on a desert island. Abbey was for Edward Abbey, author of The Monkey Wrench Gang-another book he’d once have chosen but now that he’d seen more of the world would substitute with something else. Maybe the Art of War by Sun Tzu, although it wouldn’t be the smartest name to put on a phony passport.

  He reminded himself of two of Sun Tzu’s rules:

  Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.

  And.

  Bring war material with you from home, but forage on the enemy.

  The West Sunnyside Avenue address belonged to the ex-governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich. That one made him smile.

  Nate had not flown commercial since he’d been placed on the FBI watch list, and he’d vowed he never would again. He’d heard about the vaunted and annoying U.S. airport security measures, and made it a point not to pack metal objects or any liquid containers larger than three ounces. He breezed through security after they checked his ticket against his passport, a remnant of the old days that would expire soon. He’d been issued ten of them in different names and he still had two in reserve. He was curious if the agents would question him because he’d bought his ticket with cash, and was surprised they didn’t. Fortunately, they were preoccupied with a woman in her mideighties traveling to visit her grandchildren who had tried to smuggle a large bottle of shampoo aboard in her makeup case.

  He sat alone in the departure lounge with his carry-on across his knees and a Bluetooth earpiece in his ear because it seemed like the Phillip Abbey thing to do. He watched the sun highlight different aspects of the Teton Range. When the plane he was to take landed, he watched the incoming passengers as they filed through the doorway. They were wealthy, white, and woodsy folks chattering happily, pointing out to their seatmates through the massive windows where they lived in the valley, discussing the moose on the highway they’d seen in the distance as they landed. Several were already talking on their cell phones or into their Bluetooth devices.

  He sighed, and continued to look like Phillip Abbey on this way to Chicago.

  29

  “I can promise you nothing,” Joe said to Orin Smith, who sat across from him at a small table in a basement interrogation room in the Federal Building.

  “Then why am I here?” Smith asked softly. “Agent Coon wasn’t clear with me other than to say you thought I might know something about your case-whatever it is.”

  The room was small, close, institutional light green, and too brightly lit. Joe and Orin Smith were alone in it, although both were well aware of Coon’s invisible presence on the other side of the one-way glass on the south wall, as well as two closed-circuit cameras with glowing red lights mounted in opposite corners of the ceiling.

  Smith looked Joe over skeptically. “I’ve never hunted or fished in my life,” he said. “I don’t even like the outdoors. I don’t see the point of going without a hot shower, a cold cocktail, and a flush toilet. As far as I’m concerned,” Smith said, “camping is just nature’s way of feeding mosquitoes.”

  “I’m glad we got that cleared up,” Joe said. “But this has nothing to do with hunting or fishing.”

  “But you’re what-a game warden?” Smith asked, after reading the patch on Joe’s uniform sleeve.

  “Yup.”

  “I think you may be in the wrong building,” Smith said.

  “Nope.”

  Orin Smith was in his mid-sixties and didn’t have an aura that hinted at charisma or confidence, Joe thought. Smith was short and soft with a blade-like nose and wounded eyes that never remained in one place very long. His skin was thin and pale as if made of parchment. Ancient acne scars dimpled his cheeks and fleshy neck. He wore an orange one-piece jail jumpsuit, and boat shoes with the laces removed. Only two things set Smith apart from any other inmate, Joe observed. Smith’s hair was long and swept back and expensively cut into layers designed to hide abnormally large ears, and his teeth were capped and perfect and reminded Joe of two strings of pearls.

  “My questions have nothing to do with the charges you’re in here for,” Joe said. “I’m a lot more interested in your former life. Back when you owned a company called Rope the Wind.”

  The mention of the name created a reaction in Orin Smith that resembled a mild electric shock, although he quickly recovered.

  “I owned a lot of companies,” Smith said, finally.

  “Let’s start with that,” Joe said, drawing his small spiral notebook out of his breast pocket. “What I can do, if you cooperate with me and answer my questions, is to put in a good word to the federal district judge. And, frankly, I can ask the governor to do the same. I’m not trying to incriminate you in any way.”

  “The governor?” Smith asked. “You know him?” There was doubt showing by the way he cocked his head slightly to the side, canine-style.

  “I work for him from time to time,” Joe said. “If you know him, you know there isn’t a person in this state who can guarantee what he’ll do or say, including me. But if you tell me the truth and help me out, I’ll tell him just that.”

  “Interesting,” Smith said. “Will you put that in writing and send it to my lawyer?”

  “No,” Joe said. “My
word is my word. Take it or leave it.”

  “I should call my lawyer,” Smith said. “I shouldn’t be talking to you without him in the room.”

  “Suit yourself,” Joe said, sitting back. “I’ll wait until he gets here. But keep in mind I’ve got time constraints and I don’t live here in Cheyenne. I can’t guarantee the offer will still stand if you and your lawyer take your time making a decision to talk to me or not. I may not be able to come back here when you decide, and I may not want to come.” Thinking: Please don’t call your lawyer and delay this.

  “I drove all night to get here,” Joe said.

  “That’s your problem, not mine.”

  Smith assessed Joe in silence, looking at him in a detached and quiet way that reminded Joe of a poker player trying to guess if his opponent was bluffing.

  “I’ll have to get back to you on this,” Smith said as he stood up. The man walked across the room and rapped on the one-way mirror.

  “We’re done here for now,” he said.

  Joe cursed to himself as a U.S. Marshall opened the door to let Smith out.

  “He’s wily,” Coon said, as they walked down the hallway toward the elevator. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he strung you along for a while and ended up saying nothing.”

  “I wasn’t kidding about the time constraints,” Joe said. “I can maybe stay tonight, but not longer than that.”

  “What’re you going to do while you cool your heels?”

  Joe shrugged.

  “If he hasn’t gotten back to you by tonight, you want to come over for dinner? I’ll grill you a steak or a burger or something. You bring beer.”

  “Make it a steak,” Joe said. “I know how much more money you Feds make than lowly state employees.”

  Coon snorted at that. At the door of the security entrance, Coon keyed the pad and the door whooshed open. “I’ll give you a call if he decides to talk to you,” he said. “Keep your cell phone on.”