In the wake of Simon’s gauzy autobiography, one of the council members sniffled and reached for a tissue.
Caroline resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
“Now that you know a little something about me,” Simon finished, “I’d like to turn this presentation over to my colleague Gregory Parsons, who will describe the details of our proposal. He’ll tell you about the financing structure, as well as the valuable property the city will be receiving in the land-swap component of the deal. After that, Conrad Vizzi will explain how this public-private project will benefit the homeless and other disadvantaged populations at Oasis. I’m sure you’re going to love it.”
Two hours later, Simon looked satisfied and the city council looked bored.
As Caroline had suspected, the presentation had been one long puff piece. Someone at Greenleaf Development had created a slideshow of architectural renderings. In each, the Reed Building towered gloriously over Bunker Hill while smiling Oasis workers in green HELPING YOU HELP YOURSELF T-shirts looked on with pride.
The images made Caroline want to throw something at the screen.
Gregory Parsons’s description of the land swap had increased the fury brewing in her gut. When he touted the “prime” property the city was going to get as part of its compensation for letting Simon develop Bunker Hill, she knew the city was getting conned.
Not this time, she reminded herself. Not if she could avert it.
Caroline took a breath.
Soon. She’d be doing battle soon.
President Barnes opened the floor to comments from the citizens on the council’s short public-input agenda.
The questions that followed were far from hard-hitting. A handful of people asked whether traffic would be adversely impacted by the construction.
Simon easily answered those questions to everyone’s satisfaction.
When the fifth member of the public had finished her questions and sat down, Simon caught the president’s eye and gave a small nod.
“If there are no other public comments, I’d like to move for a vote,” said the president.
“I second that motion,” said the councilwoman sitting beside him. As far as Caroline could tell, she’d been doodling on her notebook for the better part of the last hour.
“Um, there appear to be three more names on the agenda for public comment,” said the councilman beside the doodler. With his narrow face, big ears, and thick glasses, he reminded Caroline of a mouse. A mouse in a red sweater-vest.
The president exhaled a huff, as if the mouselike councilman was a regular annoyance.
“I thought there were only five,” said the president.
“No, there are eight,” the councilman confirmed. As if to forestall any further questions, he shrugged at the president.
“Okay, who’s next?” the president asked.
“Concerned Citizen Number One.”
“I hereby call to the podium for comment Concerned Citizen Number One,” the president intoned. It was the same formula with which he’d welcomed the other five citizens up to the podium, all of whom had used their actual names.
Taking one last calming breath, Caroline rose.
She slipped from her pew and headed toward the front of the chamber. On her way, she stopped at the audiovisual technician, who handed her a long cable to connect her laptop to the screens positioned over the dais.
Then she continued up to the wooden podium.
Though she did not look at Simon, Caroline imagined that his face held benign amusement. He’d never seen her before and wasn’t likely to recognize her even from pictures, especially with her new haircut.
All of that was about to change.
“Good evening,” Caroline said when she reached the podium. “I’ve heard some great things tonight about this project. I just have a couple concerns that I’d like to bring to the attention of our elected officials charged with serving and protecting our city’s interests.”
Instead of speaking to the people on the dais, Caroline spoke to the cameras that the news outlets had set up behind the council members. She knew that if Simon had the chance, he’d skew what she was about to say. He’d color it and manipulate it. That everything would be recorded and broadcast would make it harder for him to maneuver.
“My first concern is the value of the land swap,” Caroline began. She’d picked the topic because it sounded benign, just the sort of thing a concerned citizen might raise.
Thibodeaux caught the president’s eye and raised an eyebrow.
“Mr. Reed has already spoken to that issue,” said the president. “The land that Oasis will give to the city as partial consideration for the Bunker Hill ground lease is quite valuable.”
“With all due respect, Mr. President, I disagree.” Caroline brought up the first slide of her presentation. The image on the screen showed a street lined with rows of trailers surrounded by piles of trash. Power lines crisscrossed the skyline.
“This is Parrino Court,” Caroline said. “This is the supposedly valuable land that Mr. Reed is proposing to give to the city as the land-swap part of this deal.”
“That property has appraised at a much higher value than its appearance would suggest,” said the president. “It’s located near the train line and will give the city valuable access.”
“Except that your appraisal was provided by Mr. Parsons’s company.” Caroline looked at Gregory Parsons. “I believe he’s run into some trouble in the past with his appraisals?”
She answered her own question by displaying a slide showing the last page of the judgment entered against a Mr. Gregory M. Parsons in the civil fraud action.
The flush of color that painted Parsons’s face told Caroline her punch had landed squarely.
“I don’t recall seeing a Concerned Citizen Number One on the agenda,” Thibodeaux said, rising to his feet. Caroline knew he recognized her now. He was trying to shut her down.
She had prepared for this moment.
With a tap on the keyboard, she brought another slide up on the screen.
“Here’s the official agenda. I’m on it. See, I’m number six on the public-input section.” She didn’t tell him that she’d hacked the agenda. If the council had tried to constrain how many members of the public were allowed to speak, she’d simply remedied their abuse of power by expanding the agenda to accommodate all concerned citizens.
“Concerned Citizen Number One is indeed on the agenda,” confirmed the mouselike councilman.
The president shot him a withering look, but Caroline had already moved to the next slide.
“An even bigger problem arises when we look at the money that Oasis used to purchase the Parrino Court property,” she said. “As you saw from the official documentation, Mr. Vizzi characterized the money that Oasis used to purchase that land-swap property as coming from charitable donations. But Oasis isn’t registered as a charity.”
Caroline paused to allow the council members to study the screen shot of the Cumulative List of Organizations. It was the same page she’d provided to her old classmate Wallace Boyd when she’d visited him at the DA’s office—a visit that felt like a lifetime ago.
“Oasis operates under the auspices of a fiscal sponsor called Reed Philanthropy,” she continued. “What that means is that Oasis provides no tax reporting whatsoever. So, we have no idea what money’s coming into Oasis or who’s donating to it.”
The murmur of conversation behind Caroline told her that the audience, if not the entire city council, was at least mildly disturbed by this revelation.
“Is this true?” asked the councilwoman who’d stopped her doodling to look at Simon Reed’s team.
“Technically yes,” said Conrad Vizzi, “but Reed Philanthropy makes sure all of our internal operations are proper.”
“Except they don’t,” Caroline said. With a click of the laptop’s keyboard, she brought up the tax filings for Reed Philanthropy, fiscal sponsor. “I’d like you to take a look at the identit
y of the chief administrator of Reed Philanthropy. It’s our friend Gregory Parsons.”
Caroline paused to let the council members ponder the implications.
“Judging by who’s doing the watching, I’d have to bet that Reed Philanthropy isn’t watching Oasis too closely. As that lawsuit suggests, when you have Mr. Parsons handling your money and accounting, anything goes.”
Again, Caroline waited a moment, knowing that the reporters at the back of the room were wide-awake now. So was Simon, who seethed beneath his affable exterior.
“But I’m not here to complain about Oasis’s lack of tax reporting or public oversight,” she continued. “That’s a problem for the attorney general or the IRS. What I’d like to tell you about now is a scandal of epic and horrifying proportions.”
Thibodeaux and Simon huddled together, whispering to each other.
Before they could decide what to do to end her presentation, Caroline brought the PowerPoint image of Parrino Court back onto the screen, split with images of Simon Reed’s other development projects. The County Law Library renovation. The affordable housing complexes. The office parks and government buildings and other public-private partnerships.
“Do you know what I see when I look at Simon Reed’s buildings?” Caroline asked. She paused to gauge the curiosity shining in the eyes of every member of the city council, including the president, whom she was pretty sure Simon owned.
“I see money laundering,” she finished.
A ripple of electric conversation hummed through the chamber hall.
“Everything that Mr. Reed has done has had one goal and one purpose: obscuring the origins of his money,” Caroline continued. For weeks, she’d wondered how Simon had hidden the money he’d pilfered from nursing home residents. She’d wondered how he’d gotten his projects funded even in an anemic real estate market. The Hidalgo case had planted the seed of an idea, and the research she’d performed at the pool hall had let it blossom.
The scale of Simon’s money-laundering scheme was far larger than Rogelio Gonzalez’s, but the mechanisms were the same. Turn one thing into another. Take something evil and obscure its origins until it could be sold on the open market.
“Mr. Reed told us that he started Greenleaf Development a decade ago with the help of a group of determined investors. Remember that?” Caroline asked. “He described how hard it was—going door to door, trying to find those early investors. But that’s not how he found investors. The truth is, he made them up.”
“Made-up investors don’t have real money to invest,” Simon said from his chair. He smiled and looked around the chamber, as if to make sure everyone was still with him.
Judging from the handful of smiles he received in response, they were.
“Oh, the money was quite real,” said Caroline, “but it didn’t come from anyone real.”
She watched the eyebrows of several council members knit.
“I’m sure you recall that heartwarming story that Simon told about how he grew up seeing his dad’s good works and real Christian values,” she continued. “That part of the story is true. Duncan Reed was in the seminary as a young man. He believed a rich man had as much chance of going to Heaven as a camel had of passing through the eye of a needle. So he gave his money away to the needy. He didn’t even bother to set up Oasis as a charity so he could get the tax deductions. All he cared about was doing good works. Mr. Reed may be severely impaired now, but he spent a lifetime trying to make the world a better place.”
The council members nodded their agreement of Caroline’s assessment of Duncan Reed.
Caroline was glad to see their response. She needed to separate Simon from his sainted father. Acknowledging Duncan Reed’s good works would help her do that.
“Simon’s right about another thing, too,” Caroline continued. “Duncan Reed believed a man needed to make his own way. And so, when Simon wanted to launch a company, his father didn’t provide any money for his son’s venture. You remember Simon telling you that, right?”
Again, the heads of several council members nodded up and down.
“So what did Simon to do? How did he raise funds to launch Greenleaf?” Caroline asked. “The answer is identity theft. Coordinated and massive identity theft.”
Thibodeaux rose to his feet. “I think we’ve heard enough crazy theories for one night.”
He fixed the president with a pointed look.
“You have the power to end these proceedings once a member of the public has spoken for five minutes, which Concerned Citizen Number One has done,” Thibodeaux said to the president. “In addition, Chapter 2, Rule 12(a)(2), bars members of the public from making slanderous remarks about anyone on the council or any matter under consideration by it.”
“It’s true the president has the power to end my presentation,” Caroline said, “but Rule 7 gives this council the power to extend it.”
She brought the provision up on the screen.
“As you can see, Rule 7 states, ‘The presiding officer may grant or deny speakers additional time, subject to reversal by a majority of the council.’ A vote of eight will allow me to continue my presentation, which, I assure you, is not slanderous but absolutely true. If you give me just another five minutes of your time, I promise I will fully document each and every one of my allegations.”
A loud murmur of voices reverberated around the council chamber.
Caroline’s throat tightened with concern. She’d reached the most dangerous part of the hearing. She’d known when she’d started that after five minutes, her presentation would be at the council’s discretion—they could cut her off. She hoped they’d let her continue.
And if they didn’t?
She glanced toward the door.
If the council stopped her presentation now, she’d have to run.
She didn’t like her chances.
“Fine,” said the president. “I call for a vote under the mandates of Rule 15 on the matter of whether Concerned Citizen Number One’s presentation shall be ended. Shall the chair be overruled?”
The balding, mouselike councilman was the first to vote.
“Aye,” he said in a loud, clear voice.
The councilwoman who’d been doodling gave a second aye.
Caroline eyed the rest of the council, praying that their curiosity overcame their desire to make it home in time for dinner.
Finally, another councilman spoke: “Aye.”
Caroline exhaled. She knew she’d get the rest of the votes she needed. Enough council members had expressed a desire to hear her out. The rest would acquiesce out of professional courtesy to their colleagues, if not actual interest in what Caroline had to say.
When the last of the eight ayes had spoken, the president frowned.
“You have five more minutes,” he said, “after which we may take another vote.”
“Thank you,” Caroline said, thinking quickly.
The piercing glare from Simon reminded her of the hearing in the Mateo Hidalgo matter. But this time she wasn’t arguing for a little boy’s safety. She was arguing for her life. The trail of carnage that Lani had described suggested that Simon had many more tools than the hit man Jake had left in alley. Simon was ruthless and well connected. He’d find ways to destroy her, she knew. If given the chance.
“Simon told us how he worked at Oasis when he was young—he helped by digitizing records and chatting up residents. It all sounded pretty good, right? Except that chatting up residents and digitizing records wasn’t all he was doing. He was also opening bank accounts in the residents’ names.”
“That’s not true,” Simon protested, half rising from his chair.
Caroline ignored him. “Simon had access to all of Oasis’s files in those early years. He’s the guy that moved the data from those little note cards to Oasis’s first database. In the process, he harvested Social Security numbers and used them to create dozens of fake identities. An army of ghosts. He used that army to get the loans he use
d to start Greenleaf. That’s the original sin of Simon’s real estate empire: massive identity theft.”
The faces of the city council swiveled toward Simon to hear his answer.
“This is absurd,” he said. “And anyway, people whose identities have been stolen always find out about it. It wrecks their credit. There’s no way someone who did what she accuses me of doing would be able to get away with it.”
Rather than responding directly to Simon, Caroline kept her attention on the council.
“It’s true that identity thieves often get caught, but that didn’t happen here. Simon has paid off or paid enough interest on his loans to avoid scrutiny from either the banks or the real people whose identities he’s stolen. I don’t expect you to just take me at my word, though. Instead, I’d like to bring in someone with unimpeachable credibility and no dog in this fight.”
Caroline sent a silent prayer to the witness gods that the woman she’d called from the pool hall had decided to show up. She hadn’t seen the witness in the gallery when she’d arrived with Federica, and she hadn’t wanted to risk standing up to try to find her.
“Concerned Citizen Number Two, please come up to the podium,” Caroline said.
At the back of the gallery, a short, dark-haired woman rose to her feet. She pushed her horn-rimmed glasses up the bridge of her nose before gingerly making her way up to the front of the council chamber.
Simon’s eyes widened when he caught sight of the bespectacled woman’s face.
Caroline knew the reason. When she’d phoned the woman, she’d had only a hunch about how Simon had funded his development projects. But after talking to the woman who now approached the podium, the pieces of the puzzle had slammed together with such resounding force that Caroline had almost cheered aloud.
When the woman stood beside her, Caroline faced the council.
Proof (Caroline Auden Book 2) Page 30