Deadly Conception
Page 17
Gabriel nodded and took another sip of his iced coffee. “Yes.”
Her voice hardened. “No. I think you’re holding back. I know Asrani picked your firm because you were on the ropes financially. He did that sort of thing. He believed people worked harder when they’re desperate. So why don’t you tell me what you’re hiding? Or I’ll make sure your firm doesn’t earn another dollar from Pilgrim Trust.”
She sat back and thought, turn up the heat and let’s see what boils over.
Gabriel didn’t know she was bluffing. He didn’t care. He needed the work, and the money.
“You’re right. I’m holding back.”
She didn’t flinch. “Go on.”
“During the hack we discovered your husband had private email accounts and was having affairs, maybe even an illegitimate child. The pictures, the messages…well, I can be graphic. But I don’t think that’s necessary.”
Firuzeh sat still for a moment. A child? Why would Asrani have a picture of a baby?
“What else, Mr. Sweeney?”
“Pablo and I warned him. Scolded him, in fact. That kind of thing leads to blackmail and a corporate reputation nightmare. We purposely left it out of the report because it wouldn’t change any of our recommendations and would only undermine Asrani. And that was never my assignment. I was charged with finding risk exposures and presenting them to Mr. Patel. And that’s what I did. It was up to him to make the fix.”
Firuzeh smiled. “Thank you. I suspected the son of a dog was cheating a while ago, so I hired my own investigator and found the same thing.”
Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “You’re taking this very calmly,” he said and thought, Damn! Neely’s report about this woman being hard core is spot on. I guess you’d have to be if you’re a badass at the Federal Reserve Bank.
She shrugged. “Trust me. It hurts. You mentioned an illegitimate child? That’s nonsense. Mr. Patel and I are both infertile.”
“Jesus! I didn’t know.”
“As for the affairs? Men, especially aging powerful ones, do stupid things to feed their insatiable ego. Cheating is just part of it. Asrani’s ego was healthy. It’s why he stayed so fit, eating food to live rather than to enjoy, and relentlessly keeping his power at the bank intact…and growing.” She frowned. “And that’s what makes no sense to me.”
“Explain.”
“My husband was vigorous. His heart was horse-healthy, his blood pressure was monk-like low, and his cholesterol levels were impressive – HDL in the 60s and LDL in the high 90s. I don’t believe...I can’t believe…he had a heart attack.”
Gabriel was riveted. Well, she’s right about that. But he was not ready to say anything about the strange chemical Raimy found in the CEO’s toxicology report. He wasn’t about to trust anyone yet.
“Mrs. Patel, when we told him about finding the private emails, the pictures, and everything Asrani lost color in his face and pretty much rushed out the door. The police said the cause of death was heart attack. Do you think he was so upset that it caused his heart attack?”
Firuzeh shook her head. “Are you kidding? He was the CEO of a major bank. He’s handled employee kidnappings when they occurred on international travel, government extortion, blackmail by mistresses, terrorist threats, stock market crashes, and Russian cyber-hacks on an almost weekly basis. There’s no way that report would upset him.”
“Yeah…he did strike me as a very cool cucumber.”
“He was always cool under pressure. Honestly, I wonder if some conniving mistress or business rival was behind this.”
“Murder?”
“I don’t know. But if what you say is true, that he went ashen and bolted from the restaurant, then he was panicked by something. That’s not his character. He is…as you say…cool as a cucumber. I want to talk to this Pablo person. How do I get in touch with him?”
Gabriel drained his iced coffee and got up.
“Mrs. Patel, I have to get back to my hotel suite to finish up some work for the bank. I have a lot more to tell you, but this is not the time or the place. Can you join me tonight for dinner? There’s someone you need to meet.”
Chapter 55
“Raimy, hey, it’s Gabriel. Listen, I’m leaving the coffee meeting with Asrani’s wife…widow…I’m going to pick some food at Nerd Plates…it’s in the mall near the Ritz. I don’t think I’ll be trusting any room service for a while.”
“I know what you mean. Pick something up for me, too. I’m famished. By the way, how’d it go with the widow?”
“I’m not certain. We can talk about over lunch. Besides, you’re going to meet her tonight. We’re having dinner together.”
“What!?”
“I’ll explain later.”
Gabriel ended the call and made his way over to Nerd Plates in Tysons Galleria, picked up a grilled grass-fed steak sandwich for Raimy and a wild ahi tuna banh mi for himself. During his walk back to the hotel he texted Firuzeh Patel.
Please meet at 5:30 at Steady Eddie’s at 6900 Tysons One Place. Let me know if you change your mind.
He got to his hotel room, put down the food, knocked on the adjoining room door and called out to Raimy to come over for lunch. When he entered, Gabriel burst out laughing and nearly projected a mouthful of his sandwich across the room.
Raimy stood before him in a pair of badly fitting swim trunks decorated with yellow rubber ducks. “What’s so funny?” he said, defensively.
“Raimy, my client is dead. My best friend is dead. Some woman spiked my drink and I nearly drowned. People are trying to kill me, frame you, beat up your kid. Some kinda Martian Heroin is popping up. Your wife cheats on you. You’ve been kicked out of your house…and you’re lounging around in – that! It’s all so absurd…and, well, if I didn’t laugh then I’d probably jump off the damned balcony.”
“Don’t think I don’t know all of that. But I didn’t know what else to do. My boy is okay…for now. I needed to relax, and the pool looked really nice. I didn’t pack for a pool, so I bought this swimsuit downstairs. They didn’t have my size, obviously.”
“Did you manage to relax at all?” asked Gabriel as he tossed the steak sandwich over.
“Yeah…for about an hour. I did some meditation and then knocked out 50 laps in the pool.”
“Good for you.”
“Yeah, well then a couple of very lovely ladies showed up and I thought I’d try my hand at flirting. With the divorce and everything I’m going to need to figure out how to get back in the game. It’s been 17 years.”
“And…”
“I walked over to them and said, ‘I’m sorry. Were you talking to me?’ and they said, ‘No’. So, I said, ‘Well then, will you please start.’”
“Oh my God. Raimy. No. Really? Where did you get that?”
“I read it on a Men’s Health blog post.”
“Jesus. So? Did they shoot you down?”
“They both laughed and said that was the lamest pick up line they had heard all day. And then the three of us were off to the races. Didn’t stop talking for an hour. I’m having a drink with one of ‘em tonight.”
“Well, good for you. But you better make it an early drink…or a late one…you and I are having dinner with the widow at 5:30.”
“That’s right. So, tell me. What happened at this coffee you two had?”
Gabriel recounted the meeting.
“Raimy, I want you to tell her about Asrani’s cause of death.”
“You mean the chemical anomaly?”
“Yes. I think you should also talk about that Lohan kid, the one from the Vineyard with the tattoos.”
“You’re bringing her all the way into our mess, aren’t you?”
“She’s already suspicious about her husband’s death. She just doesn’t buy that her healthy husband had a heart attack. She has resources and she’s determined – maybe she can help.”
Raimy thought about it. “Alright. Sure. Why not? I plan to go public with my findings soon enough an
yway, if only to clear my name and get that son-of-a-nutcracker Tanzler. Let’s do this.”
“Okay. Good. Now we’ve got a few hours before dinner. I want to dig into those memory chip files. Especially now that those virtual triggers have been disengaged.”
Gabriel inserted the thumb drive with the copy of the memory chip files into his laptop and pulled up the list of files it contained. Then his phone trilled.
“Hello?”
“Pop? What the hell? Are you okay?”
“Iona, sweetie, I’m fine. You sound scared, honey. What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine…just freakin’. I’m back from Cyprus and I got a text message from Lilo…remember from the Vineyard…the guy with the tats?”
“What? You got a text from him? When?” Gabriel was stunned. Liam Lohan was dead.
“I dunno. I didn’t have my phone overseas. I just saw his text…just now. It’s dated…like…a few hours ago. But Pop the message is creepy.”
“What does it say, honey?” Gabriel motioned to Raimy to listen in.
Tell your Dad to turn himself in now or his pretty little Iona will be face down in a swimming pool.
“Oh my god…oh my fucking god…the bastards.”
“Pop, what’s going on? Why would Lilo say this? What did you do? I’m scared.”
“That’s not from Lilo, honey. Trust me. Put your mother on the phone. Right now.”
Gabriel explained to his ex what he could as succinctly as possible. At first, she insisted on going to the police. But once he described his narrow escape from the pool, Pablo’s death, and that Lohan had been dead for weeks she no longer cared if Gabriel’s story made sense. She knew her daughter, their daughter, was in danger and agreed to get her out of town.
Raimy put his arm around his friend. Gabriel ended the call, shaken.
“God damn, fuckers! You heard that, right? You gotta make sure your family is safe. These bastards…they’ll stop at nothing.”
“I already talked my wife…ex-wife…whatever. They’re hitting the road. Relatives in Halifax. They’ll be safe there.”
Gabriel’s fear quickly turned to outrage. “Those motherfuckers. They musta got a hold of Lohan’s phone. I don’t care what it takes. I’m gonna get those fuckers. Goddammit. I swear I’m gonna get ‘em.”
“I’m with you, man. Let’s dig into those chip files. We can’t trust anybody o help us.”
Gabriel knew his friend was right. Iona will be safe. I hope, he thought. He sat down and began poring over the files.
“Man, how many photos are there? Are these all his girlfriends? And what’s with the baby pic? I thought he didn’t have kids. Is that his kid?” Raimy asked.
“I dunno. It’s a lot. Weird, though.”
“What’s weird? That your client was a raging cheater?”
“No. Raimy, look. None of these mistress photos are named. Each one just has an alpha-numeric title.”
“Whaddya mean?”
“Here, see the blonde? She has no name. The photo is saved as G64 P0.00500. And the brunette, with the glasses? Saved as 052-111-00-243-6. And here, look, this one is saved as M3. Just M3. I don’t get it.”
“Maybe when Asrani took the photo he didn’t bother generating a new name for the image. Maybe he just used the one that’s automatically generated by the camera.”
“Maybe. Still…seems odd. Wouldn’t the photo names be more consistent?”
“Jesus, Gabriel. Are you looking to date some dead guy’s whores? He could have used different smartphones or cameras to take the pictures. That could account for it. I don’t know. If it helps just name her Whore 1, and that one Whore 2, would that help?”
“Dude. Chill out. It just seems like he would use their names.”
Raimy was agitated. “Whatever, Gabriel. Who cares? He was a cheater. Maybe he just likes screwing random co-eds. Cheaters get what they deserve.”
“Raimy, I didn’t sleep with your wife. So, give it a break, okay? Lay the hell off me. And focus on the goddamn fact that you and I are dangerously behind the eight ball and I’d like to find out who’s holding the cue.”
The pair stared at each other for a New York minute when Gabriel broke the momentary silence.
“Raimy, what did you say before? Something about ‘random’?”
“I said, maybe he was just screwing random co-eds. Why?”
“What if these photos are just that…random…meaningless photos of sexy hot women. Just bait so that anyone who finds this file just thinks the guy has a bunch of mistresses.”
“Okay…but why? Why would he do that?
“What if the alpha-numeric tags under the images are not random. What if they are intentional? Like a code?”
“Holy smokes! That’s brilliant…simple and brilliant.”
Gabriel copied the image file names onto a separate spread sheet in the same order they were listed on the memory chip.
“Raimy, here. Take a look. The first twelve listings are numbers only. Each one is a twelve-digit number. They don’t seem to be in sequence.”
“Phone numbers, maybe?”
“No. I don’t think so. Seven digits for a number. Add three for an area code. That’s ten. It could be an international number…but I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Country codes all differ. Some are two digits, most have three. Some even more. These are too long for domestic phone numbers. And they’re almost all too short for international numbers.”
Raimy thought for a moment. “They certainly aren’t social security numbers. Those are only nine digits.”
“And the rest are all alpha-numeric designations,” Gabriel noted. “Some are just a letter and a number. Like M3 or S10484. All the others start with the letter G and then have numbers and letters after it. G0 Z0.1 and G1 F3000 X-0.1. It’s a long list.”
“Makes no sense. What’s in the next one?”
Gabriel launched the next file. “It’s a spread sheet.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
“I’m just talking out loud. Calm down.”
“Well, it’s not much of a spread sheet. There are just two columns. Once with a bunch of letters and the other with numbers.”
“Lemme see. Hmmm….SB, MF, MG, NK, DK, RK, LL, JM, EF, AP, AP, MT. These seem like initials. What do you think?”
“I dunno,’ Raimy said. “They sure could be. Two sets are AP…they’re listed twice. The numbers next to each set of letters are 0.25, 0.5, 0.25, 1. They all seem to be quarters of 1 or less.”
“Yeah, you’re right. They’re all .25 or .5 or 1. No .75, though. There is a 2 and a 101.”
“Typos?”
“Asrani Patel didn’t strike me as someone who made typos.”
“Wait...what did you say?” Raimy looked excited.
Gabriel stared at him. “I said, Asrani Patel didn’t seem like a guy -- “
“Asrani Patel. AP! His initials are AP!”
“You’re right! And look the file is called BHB – Beacon Hill Bank!”
“Okay, buddy boy. Slow down. BHB is also beta-hydroxybutyrate, one of the three energy molecules your body makes when it's running on fat instead of carbs.”
“Raimy. Listen to me. To win the Pilgrim Trust Bank account I needed to learn a lot about the banking business. Beacon Hill Bank is one of the oldest banks in Boston.”
“So what?”
“So, why would my client, Asrani Patel, have a file with the initial BHB stored on a memory chip in his secret cell phone?”
“I don’t know, Gabriel. Maybe BHB stands for Bar Harbor in Maine. Maybe he liked taking his girlfriends there for hiking in the Acadia National Park?”
“Granted. But maybe it stands for Beacon Hill Bank, the same bank that was ripped off for more than a hundred million dollars back at the beginning of summer. Here. Hold on. Lemme pull up the story.”
Gabriel turned the laptop so both men could read the Boston Globe story on the heist.
“Hey, that was right before we met on the Vineyard,” Raimy noted as the pair read on.
“Well fuck me…listen to this.” Gabriel read aloud.
Authorities are still chasing leads. Dozens of individuals have been interviewed by police and federal investigators. “No arrests have been made at this time,” according to FBI Special Agent Dean Cavanaugh. Boston Police Detective Daniel Keeler, the lead investigator for the city, said all leads are being thoroughly checked out.”
“Keeler is the cop who called me in to identify Patel. Remember?”
“Shoot. That’s right. I guess it could be a coincidence,” Raimy said, doubtfully.
“Let’s find out.” Gabriel brought up the spread sheet again. “Look at the list of initials....”
“I’ve got goose bumps. Let’s see….SB…MF…MG…NK…here it is. DK. Dan Keeler!” Kitty whiskers!”
“Lessee if we recognize any others.”
They went down the list. “Nothing...nope....nada....”
Raimy sighed. “Maybe it is just a coincidence.”
“Keep at it,” Gabriel urged. “RK?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell....”
“Me neither....LL?”
“No. Maybe. Wait a second. That southie kid I autopsied. The text to Iona just now. His nickname was a tattoo. LILO…short for Liam Lohan. Shut the front door! Another match!”
“Got it. Good. Keep going, Raimy!”
“JM? EF?”
“I got nothing. Next?”
“Just three left…well, two, really. AP is listed twice.”
“Right. AP could be for Asrani Patel.”
“Hold on. Gabriel, AP could also be for that other cop. Paolucci. The one who Tanzler kept dialing after the bogus autopsies.”
“Detective Paolucci? Nino Paolucci? Nino is short for Antonio. Fuckin’ A…that’s another match. Sweet Jesus.”
“There’s one more…MT…and I know who that is,” Raimy said.
“Who?”