by Steve Richer
Kwon raced back to his desk opened a browser window, going to the Internet Movie Database website. He typed her name.
“I don’t have an official listing on her.”
Munson frowned. “Uh. She could have used a stage name. Or could it be a foreign movie?”
“The IMDb does list foreign movies. That website is pretty much the utmost authority on movies.”
“What about…”
Kwon looked up. “What?”
“Maybe a different type of movie?”
“Like what, porn?”
“You’re the expert,” she said.
She added a wink and he responded by displaying his middle finger again which made her laugh. But then he shook his head.
“Maybe a videogame? Those are pretty realistic now.”
“Wait a minute,” he whispered. “Send me the email, I wanna see something.”
She complied, forwarding the message to his inbox. “What?”
“There’s something familiar about that picture.”
“Of course it’s familiar, it’s our vic.”
“No, it’s something else.” He received the email and squinted as he inspected the image. “That neon sign… I swear I’ve seen that movie.”
“And?” Her partner didn’t reply. “Kwon, hellooo?”
He raised his arms in the air. “Yes, totally remember now! It’s from Gut Punch Beach, not really good but a nice twist in the end. The butler was working for the Russian mob all along, I didn’t see that coming.”
Before he had finished talking, it was Munson’s turn to surf onto the Internet Movie Database website where she searched for the film’s title. At first glance, it started a bunch of has-beens. She clicked where it said Full Cast and Crew.
“My God… One of the executive producers is none other than Mr. Lawson David Winslow III.”
It was Kwon’s turn to be agape. “What?”
“That little weasel lied to us. He knew the vic and he totally lied to us.”
Chapter 17
Bailey could have still been wearing pajamas but she was proud of her work ethics. Even if she was working from home she refused for it to give her license to slack off. So just like in the old days, she was up at dawn, went out to jog two miles, and then returned to the shower and get dressed.
The only concession she made when she didn’t have to meet clients was wear jeans and a sweatshirt. It felt good on her right now, her North Ironbound apartment was hell to heat up, especially with the current cold snap. People were freaking out that there wasn’t much snow, that perhaps it wouldn’t be a white Christmas again this year. It sure felt like winter though.
She shivered and took a sip of coffee. That was her only indulgence, she thought with shame as she glanced at the De’Longhi Eletta coffee machine on the counter. The device was large and expensive but good coffee kept her getting up every morning.
It made her feel like a traitor. She despised rich people. These entitled snobs were running the world, dismissing underlings like her, never hesitating to throw them under the bus if it served a purpose. Even worse, they didn’t even realize what they were doing or how it affected people. It was second nature for them, just how things were.
Was she a hypocrite to be working for rich people now? Probably. She didn’t like Lawson Winslow, a man who had never done an honest day’s work in his life and expected the world to curtsy for him at every turn. Then again, she had to eat.
She rolled her eyes as she looked at the bean-to-coffee machine again. The De’Longhi Eletta had cost her a fortune. Maybe she was just as bad as they were after all. It made her feel even worse.
She wondered if that was a coping mechanism for what had happened to her. One minute she was climbing the ranks in the Secret Service and the next she was unemployed, left in her shitty Newark apartment, staring at the Passaic River in the distance through a fifty-year-old window.
All because of New Orleans.
One night, one decision, it’s all it had taken to kill her career. To shatter her dreams. One split second moment where she hadn’t had time to properly weigh the pros and cons, the right and wrong. Life was made from a series of small decisions and sometimes you have to pick the lesser of two evils to end up in a favorable position down the line.
She wished she could go back. But then again, would she make a different choice? She didn’t know. Oftentimes she lay awake at night thinking about this. Knowing what she knew now, would it have changed her perspective? Or her values? It was one of those impossible questions and it tortured her to think about it.
Her entire life had changed because of one moment. Because of fucking New Orleans.
And now she was stuck in the private sector, working for wealthy people, the very people she despised. She didn’t believe in fate or destiny or any of that mumbo jumbo, but she couldn’t overlook the fact that the irony of it all was quite something.
She shook these thoughts out of her head, took a sip of rich coffee, and waited for her toast to pop up. She sat down at her small kitchen table and had breakfast. Ever since last night she had considered how to tackle this investigation. She still believed that Addie Burgess was the key to everything.
She had sent an email to her friend Jasmine Needham who worked at Homeland Security, asking for help. Jasmine had always been prim and proper, never going off script, but once in a while, when she could get away with it, she sent her some information from government databases.
Bailey finished her breakfast, cleared the dishes, and placed her laptop on the table, eager to get started. Her heart lurched when she saw an email from Jasmine. Her friend had come through once again.
Attached, she found phone records, tax sheets, as well as credit card and bank statements for Addie Burgess. It wasn’t her whole case wrapped in a pretty little bow but it was a great place to start. Investigative work wasn’t about bursting through the doors and interrogating suspects. Most of it was done sifting through paperwork.
And that’s what Bailey did after making a fresh cup of coffee.
She looked into Addie’s Facebook profile, who she was friends with. She looked at each of her pictures. She wasn’t much into selfies but she couldn’t escape getting tagged by other people. Every little bit counted.
Between this and the financial statements, a picture began to emerge. This woman was single but she wasn’t actively dating. She didn’t have a profile on any matchmaking site that she could find. She ate out almost every night, trendy, expensive places. She bought designer clothes. She had a car service take her to and from work every day.
Bailey knew that even rich people in New York took taxis or public transit. But not Addie. No, she loved this lifestyle. She made great money as an executive at WWG but she also spent a lot.
So why would someone like her be involved in blackmailing Lawson, as was the going theory? What was her angle? What did she have to gain?
Bailey hadn’t gone directly to the phone records. It was her least favorite part of any investigation. It was just a bunch of random numbers that didn’t tell you anything until you started searching them individually. It was still too early for lunch so she jumped in anyway.
As expected, there were many calls to her car service. She also ordered food from a caterer every Saturday around lunch time. No pizza or Chinese food for her, Bailey realized, but an honest to God caterer. Another number that came up often was her office. Made sense.
And then there was this other number which came up repeatedly. She called this one at night, always after nine o’clock. Family maybe? Couldn’t be a boyfriend, it didn’t show up that often. Bailey made a search and found who the number belonged to, some guy named Fred Keeling.
Why was this familiar?
With a surge of adrenaline which always happened when a clue jumped at her, Bailey fetched the legal pad she’d been using last night in Lawson’s hotel room. She flipped through the pages until she found that guy. He had been at the party.
Wh
o was he anyway? Lawson had mentioned that they’d gone to school together but they weren’t friends. Once more, Bailey started searching. She would wait until she hit a brick wall before asking Jasmine for help again.
Keeling managed a hedge fund worth $600 million. He was a partner in a boutique investment bank which essentially handled money for one of the large New York financial institutions. That in itself didn’t tell her much. These guys were a dime a dozen on Wall Street.
Going through his social media, she found someone quite different from Addie Burgess. Keeling seemed to be in love with himself. Most pictures consisted of a close up of his face. Analyzing the backgrounds, he was somebody who also enjoyed the finer things in life. New York’s best restaurants, tropical beaches, Vegas clubs. There was even a picture of him on a yacht.
But how did this link him to Addie? Aside from the phone calls and lifestyle, they had nothing in common, certainly no connection on Facebook or Twitter.
“That’s it,” Bailey whispered to no one in her apartment.
Late-night phone calls but no other contact. It was as if they were trying to downplay knowing each other. So now that was her job, to find how they were connected. It couldn’t be a coincidence that they’d both been at the party and yet Lawson didn’t mention that they knew each other.
She ate a sandwich made from pork roast leftovers and continued investigating these people through the afternoon. It took several hours and then she found the missing link. Both Addie Burgess and Fred Keeling were majority shareholders in a company called Corpora Z Inc.
The business was headquartered in a post office box. There were no other shareholders. She couldn’t find anything more about this company. This in itself was telling.
Both people acted as if they didn’t know each other and yet they owned a company together? Something shady was going on. But what? Addie worked at WWG and Keeling managed money.
Everything was falling into place.
The two of them had to be in cahoots to do some insider trading. Because of her high level job, Addie was in good position to provide Keeling with company secrets. On his end, he could act before the knowledge became public and beat the market for some sizable profits.
It didn’t quite explain why they would want to frame Lawson for murder and were blackmailing him but the picture was becoming clearer.
It was just after four and she had promised to call her employer with a status report. She did so reluctantly while heading into the city.
“Hello, Lawson.”
“Did you find anything?” he asked with no preamble.
“There’s definitely something fishy about Addie Burgess. She has something going on with Fred Keeling.”
“What? They’re sleeping with each other? His standards are decidedly slipping.”
“No, they have a company together and they’re trying to keep it secret.”
“What does that mean?”
“Given your families company, Keeling’s career, I’m thinking they’re involved in some sort of insider trading.”
“Oh shit!”
“I’m driving into the city right now to question her,” Bailey said. “Maybe if she knows I’m onto her she’ll talk.”
“Yes, finally I get some answers. I know where she lives, I want to confront that bitch.”
“Lawson, no. Let me do this on my own.”
“Like hell,” he spat. “I’m going there and you can’t stop me.”
“No,” Bailey practically shouted.
It was too late, the line was dead. She looked at her watch. There was no way she could reach her place before he got there. Damn.
Chapter 18
Lawson remembered where Addie lived. She rented a large apartment in a townhouse on the Upper East Side. They had dated only briefly and that was years ago but he knew she was too attached to that place to move from there. The Carnegie Hill location was exclusive and that’s what was most important to her.
He ran out of the hotel and hailed a cab.
“East 92nd Street,” he told the driver. “Big juicy tip if we go fast.”
“It’s rush hour, buddy. There’s a limit to what I can do.”
“Just try, this is important.”
The cabbie shrugged and they took off, way too slowly for Lawson’s taste although he had to concede that the traffic was heavy as they turned onto Park Avenue to go north.
He pressed his face against the window to cool down. His blood was threatening to boil over. He had left immediately after Bailey’s phone call and he wasn’t sure what he was going to say to Addie yet. Most of all, he wanted to understand.
What was her role in all this? What was happening to him? A part of him knew that he should let Bailey handle everything. After all, that’s why he had hired her. But finally getting some answers was more important than anything.
Everywhere he saw bright Christmas decorations. When was Christmas anyway? Tomorrow? The day after? He wasn’t even sure. He hadn’t celebrated Christmas in years. Sure, he always did something special but mostly it involved getting drunk with some friends.
Soon he drove by his family’s apartment building. What were they doing for Christmas? He had stopped being invited two years ago because his answer was always the same: “I’m too busy.”
At first, Lawson thought that the whole family would go down to the estate in Golden Beach but with his sister pregnant, she probably wasn’t allowed to fly down to Florida. Everyone would most likely end up celebrating at the house in Sagaponack, in the Hamptons.
If this crap hadn’t happened this week, Lawson would have done something differently for Christmas this year. Maybe ask for use of the family yacht and cruise through the Caribbean. Maybe he would’ve gone to their mansion in Aspen and ski for a few days.
Now all of this was out of the question.
As he’d told Bailey, he was going back to California. He figured this blackmailer wouldn’t have such a strong hold on him over there. Los Angeles was his home now, it was where he felt more at ease. He would have home field advantage.
But discovering that Addie was involved changed everything. At long last he could learn what was happening.
As they turned right onto East 92nd Street, Lawson directed the driver to the precise address. What would he say to her aside from hurling insults? He would figure it out once he got there.
The car eventually stopped and Lawson paid, adding a hefty tip as promised even though he wasn’t convinced they had really gone that fast. It was dark now and it started snowing.
He climbed the seven steps to the door and rang Addie’s apartment with a gloved finger. He took a deep breath, he had to stay cool.
“Yes?”
“Addie, it’s Lawson,” he said, keeping himself from screaming at her and say what really was on his mind. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
There was a long pause. It was so long in fact that Lawson wondered if they’d been cut off. He was about to ring again when there was a click of static.
“Come on up.”
The solenoid buzzed and Lawson stepped inside, quickly making his way up to the third floor – her unit actually comprised the two topmost floors. Addie was waiting for him in the doorframe.
“That’s quite a surprise,” she said coldly.
“Can we talk?”
She stepped aside and opened the door further. Lawson entered and she closed the door behind him. Now there was no going back and he still didn’t know how to broach the subject tactfully. So instead he looked around, pretending to be interested in the decor.
“Were the walls always this color?”
“What do you want, Lawson? With what’s happened, I’m not sure we’re even allowed to talk to each other.”
He bided his time, walking to the middle of the living room and looking around. It was tastefully decorated, very sober and classy. There was even a real Christmas tree in the corner which looked as if it had been set up by a professional decorator, which it undou
btedly had been.
“Can we stop playing games now?”
Addie sighed and crossed her arms. “What are you talking about? Why are you even here? You usually avoid me at all cost.”
“I wanna know what the hell is going on,” he blurted out.
“What?”
“Who’s in charge, Addie? Who’s doing this to me?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He nodded, mocking her, and took a step closer to her. “Sure, be that way. But the truth won’t stay hidden for long. We’re on to you – you and Fred.”
That made her bristle. “What do you know?”
“So you admit it. Your little company, Corpora Z, what does it do? Insider trading, is that it? You and Fred are in this together, trying to siphon money off my family?”
“How dare you!”
“What, sweetheart? Hearing the truth hurts, is that it? You’d rather use your euphemisms? What do you call it, redirecting cash flow?”
“I resent the implication,” she barked. “Get out of here right now.”
“Why did you do it? Why did you kill the girl?”
“You’re insane, Lawson.”
“Why talk to the police about me as if I’m involved? Why the text messages?”
“Get out now!” She pointed at the entrance. “Out!”
“Why the blackmail? Why did you have me smash up a fucking police car?”
Her face was red with anger. Good, Lawson thought. It was nice to see her lose control for once. She was about to speak when the floor creaked.
Simultaneously, both of them turned toward the staircase. Someone was coming down. He had boots, black pants, and a black coat. He was in no hurry to come down but eventually reached the living room.
Addie frowned. “What are you doing with a ski mask?”
Indeed, the man was wearing a black balaclava. Calmly, he reached inside his coat and pulled out a gun, aiming it at Lawson. The weapon had a silencer.
“Whoa, whoa…” Lawson began, putting up his hands defensively. “Tell me what you want. We can make a deal, okay?”
The gunman swiveled thirty degrees to his left, now aiming at Addie. Without hesitating, he shot her twice in the chest.