Bright Midnight

by Chris Formant

  “Oh—I almost forgot to tell you.”

  “Yes, what? Another surprise?”

  “Not a surprise, but remember Gantry activated his monitoring device? We got some footage of him rummaging through what looks like a garage. It’s got an interesting close-up of what looks like a journal with some handwriting. It’s silent for about five seconds, then I can hear what I think is his buddy talking.”

  “And?”

  “He’s shouting, ‘This is the jackpot! This is the box. I remember the black-and-white photos.’ The camera never leaves the pages. Then Gantry quickly slams it shut and then the camera goes off in another direction.”

  “Send me the file as soon as you get back.”

  Melendez asked that Bruce, Hammond, and their top financial-forensics analyst join him, Tanner and Jackson on a video call from the FBI clean room as soon as possible.

  “I believe our best chance of establishing a prosecutable case is to directly tie the flow of funds from business activities through offshore accounts for the purpose of avoiding U.S. and U.K. taxes,” Melendez explained. “If we find a flow back out, we can possibly triangulate to the perpetrator.”

  Melendez and Bruce knew from experience that attempting to tie a sophisticated mob-type personality to the murders would be extremely difficult unless there was direct evidence or implications.

  “These guys are too smart to have their fingerprints on anything and too well insulated. The actual killers are far removed from the brains,” Melendez said. “But tax fraud has been a successful route in the past, and could be here, if we can piece together the money trail.”

  Melendez thought the files from Hislop might be a missing link to the flow-of-funds analysis that SCU and the FBI had been conducting on Nevermore Travel. The team had uncovered the human link from the pharmacies and travel agency to the record industry through Lexington Records to the insurance beneficiaries. It was Joseph Clark. The Hislop files confirmed that. But the Hislop files also inferred that Clark was an alias, used to provide no traceable link. He was a cover for someone or someone’s. They needed to find out who.

  They had successfully identified spikes in cash outflows from Nevermore that corresponded to each rock star’s death. In addition, they’d pieced together record contracts, concert accounts, management contracts, and endorsements that amounted to a lot of bad deals and one-sided transactions, but nothing that suggested tax avoidance. Nothing that would stick.

  “These files mysteriously showed up at the Rolling Stone offices in New York,” Melendez explained as he held up the first file. “This folder contains corporate records for a handful of relatively unknown record companies. The next file contains registers of offshore accounts, and the next, onshore accounts. We believe they were sent from Angus Hislop before he was killed.

  “We are going to scan the files and send them to you immediately, and Robert, I’ve assigned Agent Jackson to work with your forensic lead to develop a flow-of-funds analysis to see what we can find. Let’s confer tomorrow and see what progress we’ve made. This may be it.”

  The FBI and SCU forensic leads had put together a joint team of thirty analysts, some of the best forensic accounting minds in the world. The analysts pored over the files and began to patch together the flow-of-funds analysis in an attempt to isolate cash inflows and outflows—a methodical and tedious process. They first reviewed every contract for each of the groups or stars. These included recording contracts, songwriting royalties, licensing, concerts, and endorsements. Then they mapped each of these, as best they could, to the cash receipts and bank deposits.

  It was like panning for gold. Most of the information proved worthless. Eventually, though, they began to uncover a few nuggets that proved illuminating.

  Back in his office, Melendez opened the file of Gantry’s surveillance footage and skimmed through it. The hotel room, a ride in a taxi, a little girl sticking her tongue, an attractive woman, and then the garage scene Moxie had told him about. He only had an hour of transmission.

  “Lousy battery life,” he muttered. He called Moxie and asked him to come by.

  “Moxie, what do you make of this?” Melendez asked.

  “Well, it looks like Gantry was in a hurry. We see him flipping through pages. The wide-angle lens on his camera unfortunately has to be enhanced to read the handwriting. Hendrix’s writing was very sloppy. We’ll have that shortly, but I can see that Gantry stops thumbing through it and focuses on one page that is particularly hard to read. Looks like some liquid and ink stains, but we’ll get it.”

  “I couldn’t make it out, either. I was hoping it was something about Hendrix’s psychiatrist. When do you think we will have this cleaned up?” Melendez asked.

  “I’m hoping within the next couple hours.”

  “Okay. Let me know as soon as—”

  “Got it, boss. Ditto on the record company files, the artist’s sketch from Ham’s girlfriend, Hislop murder, the works.”

  Moxie turned, smiled a little and left.

  When Moxie closed his door, Melendez got up and began to slowly pace his office, deep in thought. “What is it…what…” he mumbled to himself. Then he walked out to his waiting area and stared at the poster blow-up of the Beatles’ “White Album.” He remembered how maligned the album had been when it first came out. “The Beatles have lost their creative touch,” the critics had said. Over time, though, the songs became legendary, and the compositions were considered masterpieces.

  Be patient. Don’t force it. Let the pieces slide together. It’s only been a short while. Think. Think. Think.

  The financial forensic teams did find something illuminating, even though they still had more work to do to harden up their analysis. They quickly scheduled a joint FBI/SCU team call to present their findings to Melendez and Bruce.

  Agent Jackson, as spokesman, began.

  “Gentlemen, it’s probably best if I give you an example of the kind of thing we have uncovered. I am going to build a flow-of-funds on the right side of the monitor, as I share with you each component on the left.

  “Let me start with a contract for a concert performance that compensates Jimi Hendrix and the Experience $15,000 plus expenses, paid separately, for this concert. Now, as you can see,” Jackson said, pointing to the right side, “here are two deposits made to Barclays Bank the day after the concert, one for $2,700, which was apparently the expense portion. Now here is one for $25,000, the concert portion,” he explained as a tree diagram of component boxes appeared on the monitor.

  “Notice the $10,000 difference between the contract and the cash receipts.”

  “They skimmed it,” Melendez pointed out.

  “Exactly. Now this is where it gets interesting. Where did that difference go?

  “Here are the bank records of three offshore accounts,” Jackson said. Three more branches appeared. “One in Saint Lucia, one in the Cayman Islands and one in Bermuda. On the very next day, three wire transfers went out to these banks that totaled $10,000.”

  “They sent the skimming offshore,” Bruce said.

  “Exactly. Now, look at what happened a few days later with the Saint Lucia bank. Four wires went out, one to a U.S. based Iowa bank, one to a Canadian bank, one to a Swiss Bank, and one to a U.K. bank.”

  Melendez and Bruce were speechless. In spite of it being a modest amount of money by today’s standards, it was unrecorded revenue, hidden to avoid taxes. That was how the whole scheme worked.

  Then Melendez noticed it, the account at the bank in Iowa was for Nevermore Travel. The account at the bank in Canada was for Lexington Records. The tumblers were clicking into place.

  “What’s the status of these bank accounts?” Melendez asked.

  “Unfortunately, all the bank accounts had been closed or inactive for years, except for one,” Tanner replied. “The Swiss account periodically wired funds to a community bank located in the Capitol Hill section of Washington, DC. Every six months, a deposit of half a million dollars
was made to Red Branch Communications, LLC. This had been going on for more than ten years like clockwork.”

  “Tanner, what or who is Red Branch Communications?

  “Don’t know yet. We’ll have something shortly.”

  Washington, D.C.

  That afternoon, Brigid Greely once again left the office for the privacy of her car and her burner phone. She dialed an international number and waited.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s me. Are you still in the islands?”

  “You know better than that.”

  “Sorry, we haven’t spoken in quite some time.”

  “Is this important?”

  “As important as the proverbial heart attack,” she said.

  “Shoot.”

  “I’m very worried. I assume you heard about the FBI agent from our friend, who by the way seems to take it very lightly. I have a subpoena in my hand and there’s not much more stalling I can do. The warehouse is history, but there are still a lot of loose ends hanging around out there. Hislop’s disappeared, and God knows what he’s doing or where he’s going. Our conduit is conveniently unavailable. I keep getting a voice mail and no return calls. I need him to take care of this.”

  Greely’s hand was trembling as she glanced around the underground garage she parked in.

  “My dear, I’m afraid I agree with our friend. You must remain calm,? said the voice on the phone. “Everything I know from him and from you is purely coincidental. The pieces are too fragmented. Do not overreact. This is why I chose you to handle my legacy, because you’re smart, savvy and, I hope, still unflappable. You have powerful friends. Use them.”

  The phone was silent for a moment.

  “Okay. You’re right. I just needed to talk it through.”

  “Good, then. Hang up. Don’t want anything traced. I’ll talk to you soon. Stay calm and focused. Goodbye, my dear.”

  Greely knew what she had to do next. She made a series of calls and scheduled a meeting for later in the day.

  As she stepped off the escalator and into the bright light of 30th Street Station in downtown Philadelphia, she spotted him sitting at the end of the pew-like benches in a quiet section near the Market Street entrance.

  “This is not going away by itself. We are so close to having it all and with you in control of Rolling Stone. Now it could disintegrate,” she anxiously explained.

  Daniel looked at her steely eyed, “I will give Jaeger an ultimatum and get him to explain that this was blown out of proportion by a rouge reporter.”

  Alex Jaeger was visibly shaken by the call he had just received. He didn’t know whether to be scared, angry, or both. An ordinary person would have been intimidated, seeing his business and personal life passing before his eyes, but Jaeger was not an ordinary person. As he sat in his office thinking and staring at the growing pile of RSVP regrets for his wedding, he became more and more upset.

  He dialed Melendez.

  “Agent Melendez, I just got off a call with the chairman of one of our large media advertisers and a huge benefactor of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was joined by a representative of the International Record Association,” Jaeger said.

  “Yes?”

  “They were intimating that we were fabricating a story, that we’d spun a fairy tale about dead rock stars! They even said I convinced some ‘out-of-touch FBI agent’ to spend taxpayer dollars on this escapade. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Jaeger demanded.

  “They said it was all absurd, that every company would have skeletons in their closet if they went back far enough, and that this escapade of mine could inadvertently trigger all sorts of legal problems that could go on for years.”

  “Now, even my partner, Daniel is begging me to call it off. Says it will ruin me.”

  Melendez kept his silence.

  “They suggested that I should think very carefully before biting the hand that’s been feeding me for so many years. They even went so far as to intimate that they would cancel certain advertising in Stone, unless I called it off. The lawyer suggested that many of their members felt the same way. I wanted to tell them to all go fuck themselves —”

  “But you didn’t, correct?”

  “No, but I came close. I don’t like being bullied. No one tells me how to run my business! This is all bullshit!”

  “Yes, it is. I know what it feels like to be bullied by the people who pay you.”

  Melendez’s sympathy didn’t seem to calm him down.

  “Melendez, you don’t seem to understand the financial enormity of this. This is my life —this is everything I’ve spent decades building.”

  “I understand, Mr. Jaeger, they leaned on you hard.”

  “Yes, they did, very hard, and right where I am the most vulnerable. Losing your advertisers is the kiss of death. This empire doesn’t survive on subscriptions, for Christ’s sake. It’s all about the advertisers!

  “Let me ask you a question, and I need you to be absolutely straight with me. Are these really murders, or is this all just a wild-goose chase that will end embarrassing all of us?”

  Melendez paused for a moment, and then spoke deliberately.

  “Mr. Jaeger, I thought originally it might be a wild-goose chase, but with what we have uncovered, I can say unequivocally that this is very real, and was carried out with a sophistication that has stunned our investigators. This is real, Mr. Jaeger.”

  “Then fuck ’em. Fuck all of them. They can pound sand. I built this company by telling the truth and not allowing myself to be bullied by anyone,” Alex shouted. “We’ll let the chips fall where they will. I’m seeing this thing through all the way.”

  “Thank you, Alex,” Melendez responded. It was the first time Melendez had called him by his first name.

  Melendez had heard all the stories about Alex Jaeger, the good and the bad. But this personal demonstration of his courage when it really counted was one of the most admirable things he had witnessed in a long time. Alex knew what he could lose if this went the wrong way, but he didn’t blink. He was laying it all on the line.

  Tanner came to Melendez’s office later that day.

  “We’ve completed our research on Red Branch Communications,” he said with a slight smile.

  “Yes?”

  “Red Branch Communications is solely owned by one Brigid Greely of Washington, DC.”

  They let the moment settle in.

  “What did you say?” Melendez was stunned.

  “Brigid Greely,” he answered, smiling.

  “Outstanding,” Melendez said. “Thank you, Elmer.”

  “Not at all.”

  Arriving at FBI headquarters by helicopter twenty minutes later, Melendez had a car and driver waiting for him in the garage and was at Greely and Associates within minutes.

  “Ms. Greely, I am sorry to drop in on you unannounced,” he said as he opened the door to her office, “but I have something I need to speak to you about.”

  “Can’t this wait, Melendez?” she said. “I am extremely busy today, and quite frankly, I really don’t have any more time for this nonsense. Don’t you have crooks to catch?”

  “Yes, indeed,” he replied. “And I think you have time for this.” He closed the door.

  “Ms. Greely, we have been analyzing the corporate and bank records of a number of companies we believe are related to the management of the rock stars currently under our investigation.”

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “We believe that a systematic process of profit skimming occurred to avoid the payment of corporate and personal taxes in the U.S. and U.K. We further believe that the very same accounts were the source of funds to pay for the murder of a number of rock stars.”

  In the ensuing silence, Melendez watched as a single bead of sweat ran out of her hair and down along the side of her face.

  “We further followed a steady flow of funds over a ten-year period out of one of the accounts and into an account at a local Capitol
Hill bank, owned by—do you want to hazard a guess?”

  Brigid Greely’s face had turned stark white.

  “Ms. Greely, the facts suggest that you were party to a process of tax avoidance, or to be blunt, tax fraud. The facts also suggest that you may have been an accessory after the fact to murder,” Melendez said. “I don’t think I need to explain the implications for you personally and professionally.”

  “Are you threatening me?” She hissed.

  “Quite the contrary. I am trying to advise you. And I’m going to be more generous than you deserve. I will give you twenty-four hours to agree that you are going to assist us in this matter.”

  Without waiting for an answer, Melendez turned and began to walk to the door. As he opened it, he turned back and said, “Oh—and you will be under constant surveillance.”

  Greely grabbed her telephone in a panic and stabbed in the numbers. Voice mail. All that gibberish about rock & roll irritated the shit out of her.

  “Okay. This is my last call, you son of a bitch. I’ve left four messages. I didn’t kill anyone, and I’m not going to be thrown under the bus for this shit! Call me back or I’m going to come over there and cut your fucking balls off!”

  It was going on 9:00 p.m. in Quantico, and Melendez was in the clean room with Moxie and Tanner when his cell phone rang.

  “Hello, Agent Melendez. This is Detective Jodi Randolph.”

  “Yes, hello, Detective. What can I do for you. Any news for me?”

  “Yes. Did Robert Bruce call you yet?”

  “No, was he supposed to?”

  “I thought he might. Yesterday, we received some forty-year-old partial fingerprints from London and Paris. They had been lifted from the Jones and Morrison inhalers at my request. I already had McKernan’s. On a hunch, I asked that all possible fingerprints be lifted from the St. Albans and Carlton pharmacy bottles in the evidence boxes. There was nothing very useable, with one exception. We got a digital match on the partial print for Morrison and the partial for McKernan—five years and five thousand miles apart.”