Back from the Brink

by Emery Hayes

  Not a full day before Monte’s call to her in the middle of the night.

  “Did you request video from outside the bank during the same time period?”

  “No.” A frown settled on Jane’s face as she thought that through. “Damn. My mistake.”

  “Call and make the request,” Nicole said. “It’s likely, from the description, that someone sent that woman in with the deposit. Maybe they waited outside. A cashier’s is like a blank check. It would take a lot of trust not to watch it go down. Let’s see who that was. And get a copy of the deposit slip for handwriting analysis.”

  “I did think of that,” Jane said. “And it’s on its way.”

  “You’ve done great work here,” Nicole returned. “Now tell me about the others.”

  “Let’s talk about Baker,” Jane said. “She’s the easiest of the three. No random big-dollar deposits. She has a good-sized savings, which I traced back to the sale of her home in San Diego. She withdrew from that for the down payment on her townhouse on the Lake Road. She also receives a small amount quarterly, which comes directly from her mother’s estate. Her mother passed six years ago. Baker’s older sister is the executor. She’s also the next of kin, when you’re ready to reach out. Baker has four credit cards, though only one with a balance. Her most recent purchases on it include a plane ticket, Billings to Toronto, round trip, departing tomorrow at four PM; a hotel deposit—Wyndham on Saint Charles Avenue; assorted tours in and around Toronto.”

  “She had a vacation planned.”

  “Looks like.”

  “Green hadn’t mentioned that.”

  “A vacation is not unusual. But the timing and destination are suspect, I think.”

  “Me too. Anything else on Baker?”

  Jane shook her head and pushed a separate stack of papers toward Nicole.

  “What do you have on Green?”

  “Complete chaos,” Jane said. “The man can spend, and a lot of it isn’t smart buying.”

  “Which would look like what?”

  “A home, for example. Green is renting. It’s a four-bedroom with private access to the lake. He’s not married, has no known children, so I don’t know why he’s knocking around in such a large place. He’s leasing his car—current-year Caddie Escalade. No investment there. His grocery bills read like a mortgage payment, and some of it comes from as far as a courier in Paris.”

  “For truffles?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Really?” Nicole’s sarcasm morphed into surprise.

  “That and a case of wine ordered most recently on or around the first of the month.” She pointed the transaction out to Nicole on the statement. “It appears only twice more on previous statements. But he buys his beef from Nebraska and had cases of oranges shipped from Florida around Christmas—probably gifts. But the guy lives large.”

  “Does he have any savings?” Nicole asked.

  “Standard savings with a balance of two hundred twelve thousand dollars. A CD worth slightly more. He has an IRA approaching half a mil. And I get the feeling this is just chump change.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He has crazy deposits. No two ever the same amount, no month with the same amount of deposits. The money passing through his accounts this past year totals more than a million dollars.”

  “He isn’t making that at BP.”

  “Hell no,” Jane agreed. “His salary last year was a hundred sixty-eight.”

  “So what accounts for the remaining eight hundred thousand or so?”

  “Some were cash deposits. None less than three thousand, none over five. Some were electronic transfers, but there were few of those and they totaled, oddly enough, the same amount as his salary.”

  “A hundred sixty-eight grand?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the other deposits?”

  “Seven of them. No rhyme or reason for their regularity. A cluster in October and then not again until January, for example. A few came in at fifty-five thousand. The rest were close to a quarter million dollars. All of them checks.”

  “What the hell?” Nicole said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Can you trace those?”

  “Working on it, but it’ll be difficult. I asked for a copy of the checks, which the bank scans on deposit. But it will be up to the judge whether or not he adds that to the warrant. I put a tracer on those electronic deposits and hope to have a hit before I head home tonight.” She turned in her chair and sat back with a satisfied grin. “So how did I do?”

  “Fantastic,” Nicole said.

  “I’ll send for the video.”

  “Make it the last thing you do tonight,” Nicole said, and stood. “Still nothing from Monte’s digital files?”

  “I can tell you what you gave me isn’t complete,” Jane said.

  “Explain.”

  “There have been deletions. They show up as black holes between text. Very similar to letters the government censored during WWII, only the digital version.”

  “Is there any way to recover what was deleted?”

  “Not a chance. The deletions occurred before the text was added to the USB.”

  “So only if we have the original source?”

  “That’s right. I can tell you some of those deletions occurred around the following names: Green, Gates, and Franks.”

  “What were they trying to hide?”

  “I don’t know. What remains is mostly nonsense. Half thoughts. Like watching an R-rated movie with your mom holding the remote—she presses mute every time a bad word or sexy talk comes up.”

  “Any words that might interest me?”

  “Money and drugs, but nothing, so far, that ties them together. Get me the original source and I’ll get you a bedtime story too good to put down.”

  Nicole smiled. “I might be able to do that.” She’d ordered the collection of Monte’s desktop, laptop, iPad, and any other electronics still at BP. Problem was, if he’d recorded on his smartphone, he probably still had that with him. “Go home”—she nodded toward the wrappers and cans at the end of the table—“eat something healthy, and get a good night’s sleep. You’ll be working hard and nonstop again tomorrow.”

  “We’re close,” Casper said.

  “Very.”

  They were standing in his draft. So close, in fact, that Nicole could feel his breath. Tomorrow, before the day ended, they would have their man.

  24

  It was almost eight o’clock. There was enough time that she could make it home before MacAulay dropped off Jordan. She stared at the stack of remaining paperwork, which she had moved to the credenza. Usually her assistant separated it all into a twisting pattern of varicolored file folders so that, on a good day, it looked like a pinwheel. Today wasn’t good. Today it looked like a spur on the heel of Achilles. There were still duty rosters and overtime tallies to sign off on, all of which Lars had found the time to put together. There was correspondence still needing a reply, and a stack of message slips she hadn’t even glanced at. She stuffed it all into her messenger’s bag and exited the building through the back door.

  Night had fallen. Inky darkness had gathered in the trees, but overhead the sky was a clear indigo. Stars were scattered in a random trail, as though they had fallen out of someone’s pocket. Under this same sky, not forty-eight hours before, a woman had died while another ran for her life, and a man Nicole had known well enough to call a friend had been on the run. Or not.

  Was the hundred grand his take or part of an elaborate scheme to frame Monte?

  The more Nicole dissected the possibility that Monte had turned bad, the more a stubborn refusal to believe it rooted itself. Even with the evidence building against him, there just didn’t seem to be enough cause. She knew the human spirit was in a constant state of response. Had he wearied from personal and professional tragedy? An affair and a large, random deposit were enough to damn the average suspect. And she had timed it. Monte could have driven to Kalis
pell, waited in the bank parking lot, and seen that the money was deposited, then made it back on time for his shift. Was she blinded by loyalty? Was she too heavily invested in an FBI profile that, as a matter of rule, held a margin for error?

  Tension knotted in her brow, just above the bridge of her nose. She expelled a heavy breath and headed across the parking lot for her Yukon.

  There were two other vehicles parked in the lot—dispatch and the deputy monitoring the lockup were the only remaining night personnel. They were a small department in need of growth, as the population in the county continued to climb. Transplants from both the East and West Coasts, and some states scattered in between, were making a steady influx into Toole County. The draw of the rugged mountains and open spaces was hard to ignore.

  Nicole needed more deputies; Lars needed a raise. The numbers easily supported another full-time forensics tech and an assistant for MacAulay. And though the ME either didn’t see it looming or was in denial, his position was on a trajectory to grow as well. In the beginning, Mac had called it moonlighting. Two years in, he had opened his family practice to a partial partnership, sharing the patient load with a vested physician’s assistant. For more than a year now, MacAulay had spoken of either offering a full partnership into his practice or wooing an intern into the morgue from any number of medical schools. He saw patients three and a half days a week and worked autopsies around that. It all balanced until the county was hit by wrongful death, and then he worked around the clock. He managed conferences and the occasional vacation by utilizing the backup ME from Glacier County and hiring per diem doctors to fill in in his absence.

  She was thinking about strong wording to place in her report—the meeting of the county board of supervisors was coming up next week, and she would submit her budgetary needs then—when a shadow separated from the driver’s side of her Yukon and took a stance. Tall, broad shouldered, clearly male, and backlit by the lampposts, rendering the person completely unrecognizable.

  Nicole stopped, her hand clenched around the handle of her bag. She moved her right hand to her holster and popped the snap.

  “It’s Green,” he called over. He spread his arms wide and made a show of his hands, which were empty.

  Yes, she recognized the voice, but she didn’t feel any better about the situation.

  “Why didn’t you come inside?”

  “I should have,” he said. “But news of that would have made fast work across town and between agencies.”

  “And you want to keep this visit quiet?”

  He brought his hands down and rested them on his hips. She kept her palm in touch with the grip of her Glock.

  He took several steps closer, and Nicole stood her ground. He stopped when there was six feet between them. Just two law enforcement officers having a conversation.

  “What do you want, Green?”

  “For all of this to be as if it never was.”

  “I don’t have a magic wand.”

  “Neither do I. And failing that—just another failure in a list of many—how about an update? Have you heard anything about Monte?”

  “No, have you?”

  But he shook his head. “Talk is one of your deputies found his bronze medallion.”

  Nicole nodded. “True. Forensics is processing it.”

  “We wore those, you know, every day. To remember. Not just the fallen, but that we were tried and true.” He laughed without humor. A dry, scratchy sound that irritated her nerves. “Eight of us survived, and Monte’s act of heroism”—he shook his head in disbelief—“he gave it all up for the rest of us. Sacrificed himself so we could scuttle to cover. There was no way he was walking out alive. He cut across the line of fire, drawing aim. But damn if he isn’t the luckiest SOB alive.”

  Nicole nodded. She felt her throat go dry, and her fingers curled around the grip of her Glock.

  “Monte saved my ass once. I thought he could do it again.”

  “Isle of Royale, and what else?”

  He raised his arms, indicating everything that had gone down in the past forty-two hours. Still somewhat in shadow, he looked like a giant bird of prey. “When I was promoted, I asked Monte to come too. A man like that, a man who would die for you, I knew to hold on to him.”

  “Is that what Monte’s doing right now? Dying for you?”

  Green nodded. “Looks like.”

  “Like Baker did?”

  “Exactly like that. I didn’t kill her, but make no mistake about it, there’s blood on my hands anyway.”

  “Explain that to me,” Nicole demanded. “Tell me what I don’t know.”

  But that only stirred him up. “You know more than I do,” he said. “A day leading the investigation and I bet you have a list of suspects and maybe even a few confessions.”

  “Are you afraid they’ve given you up?”

  “If they did, it’s a lie.” He shifted on his feet, and Nicole heard the scraping of his hard-soled shoes on the cement. “So how bad is it?”

  “At least a handful of men,” she said. “But don’t you already know that? The AG has been inside since December.”

  “He tells me nothing,” Green said.

  Because Gates suspected he was at the center of the ring.

  “Ah, the wheels are turning,” Green said. “It doesn’t say a lot for my character, does it?”

  “You’ve been under suspicion from the beginning,” Nicole said.

  “I’m going to lose my command.”

  “You have a lot of money coming in,” Nicole said, remembering his bank statements and lavish lifestyle.

  “My bank accounts have been thoroughly investigated. Internal Affairs followed every deposit to origin.”

  “So ease my mind,” Nicole said.

  His reluctance was palpable. She watched him roll his shoulders back to try to ease the tension. “Nothing ever stays private,” he complained. “So don’t bother with platitudes.”

  “You won’t get any from me.”

  “Real estate holdings,” he said, and tried to leave it at that.

  “This is starting to stink,” Nicole warned.

  “Gambling is an addiction. We pretend to know how big it is, but the general public sees just the tip of the iceberg. I’m about mid-tier, not a player but a predator,” he said. “I have interest in a casino is Las Vegas. And business is so good, we’re branching out. We’re opening doors in June in Tahoe. Something for everyone there. The wife and kids can enjoy the lake while the man of the house gambles it away at our tables. Or vice versa. There are plenty of female players, and we’re happy to indulge both.”

  “The deposits are from a casino interest?”

  “Yes. For the first half of the year, we weren’t pulling any profits because we were building the new place. Then we had an insurgence of income from summer play in Vegas, and we split that up in rounds until all of that was depleted,” he explained. “Gambling is big business. As a rule, profits are split quarterly, January, April, July, and October, giving the money a chance to compound while it’s in reserve.”

  “How did you get involved in this?”

  “It’s a legitimate business,” he said. “Even if it’s morally reprehensible.”

  “But you don’t play?”

  “Not even the slot machines.”

  “So again, how did you get involved in this as a business?”

  “My brother. He started out working the tables, made it to assistant manager. Squirreled money away and then came to me with the proposition. We’re not alone, of course. There are a dozen of us, all equal stakeholders. But you can ask the AG. I walked him down this lane back at Christmas, when he first arrived.”

  “I think I should talk to Internal Affairs,” she told him. “It’s really about time.”

  “I knew you’d be wanting this. A natural step after talking to the AG.”

  He reached into his pocket, but with the shadow and play of light, he could just as easily be reaching for his weapon. Nicole moved
her hand, drawing her Glock from its holster just enough that she could fit her finger into the trigger guard.

  “I don’t have my side arm,” he said, picking up on her thoughts or feeling the press of night as much as she was. “I left it locked in my car. I have a smaller piece in an ankle holster.”

  He pulled a swatch of white paper out of his pocket. It was creased, and she could see there was some print but also a logo on the card. He handed it across to her. Nicole had to make a decision—either set her bag down or remove her hand from her pistol. She chose caution. An action not lost on Green.

  “And I thought we were building trust,” he said.

  “A dark, deserted parking lot and a desperate colleague,” she pointed out, but took the paper and stuffed it into her pocket without looking at it.

  “Now let’s talk about the satchel,” she said.

  “Too easy, huh?”

  “Where did it really come from?”

  But he shook his head. “I wasn’t the one who recovered it.”

  “And we’re supposed to believe it washed up with the body.”

  “A stroke of luck.” His tone wasn’t light on the sarcasm.

  “The AG said more than thirty million dollars in fentanyl is missing.”

  “My guess, it’s up and over the border.”

  “No. He says they stopped the flow, but not for long. He thinks there’s something else at play. Evidence so good it’ll make the courtroom a formality.”

  Green’s gaze caught the light from the window, and he squinted. “Have you found it?” he asked.

  It. Singular. One piece that, when pulled, would bring down the whole house of cards. She tried to ignore the skittering of nerves over her scalp. That first wave of primitive awareness, trembling between the fight-or-flight mechanism in her brain.

  “Not yet.”

  “It all comes back to the girl, doesn’t it?” he said.

  “You didn’t think so,” she offered.

  “It’s starting to make sense now,” he said. “If the UDA on ice doesn’t have it, then maybe he gave it to his sister.”