Besides, the five-mile walk was a month of exercise for Doug so he was exhausted and didn’t have a car to wait in. He decided to catch a cab back to the Intercontinental to see if John or Jenny would return.
Doug waited patiently all afternoon, reading newspapers, and wandering the lobby. No need to hide in a corner since the woman didn’t know him; he guessed Tommy wouldn’t be back, and he didn’t care if John saw him. That might even be good, as John could help Doug fill in some of the gaps. It was early evening before Jenny and her friends came through the lobby. He noticed one woman stopped at the coffee shop in the lobby before heading to the elevators. Doug opened the door for her as she left the coffee shop.
“Thank you, sir,” she said.
“You’re welcome. Say, that taller woman you were with, she looked really familiar to me. Does she live around here?” Doug asked.
“No, she doesn’t,” the woman said and quickly started to head to the elevator as that question, out of the blue, coming from a guy like Doug made her uncomfortable.
Doug sensed her apprehension and pulled out his Chicago PD badge.
“Are you sure she doesn’t live nearby? I’m looking for a local woman who fits her description.”
“No, sir. I can tell you for a fact that Jenny doesn’t live in the city so she can’t be the person you’re looking for. She lives in a little town north of Milwaukee.”
“Well, I guess not, then. Thanks for your time.” The woman seemed relieved to help Jenny avoid any mistaken identity and headed up the elevator.
Doug was pleased with himself. He had discovered that Jenny and Pat were from the same area as Tommy, and he had picked up the burner phone that Tommy dumped. He figured this woman was the key to finding the connection between Pat and Tommy. He would get Jenny’s last name figured out on Monday and now he had enough evidence of a potential tie to keep the feds interested in any commodity trading improprieties.
It wasn't direct help on the murder investigation, but Doug figured two people looking for evidence was better than one, and he certainly wasn't going to get any additional resources from his department.
That was plenty of quality work for one Saturday, Doug thought.
Hell, for the whole weekend. He headed to the corner bar, a half block down from his near-west-side apartment, where he’d spend the majority of the remainder of the weekend. He anticipated having a really nasty onday morning hangover.
31
Sunday morning was slow coming for Tommy. Cold air from a clattering air conditioning unit tumbled over the floor and snuck under the covers. He rolled himself in a blanket cocoon, too tired to get up, too restless and troubled to sleep.
Tommy was back at the Intercontinental in the morning, ordering coffee and positioning himself at a table where he could see people coming and going from the elevators. He sipped coffee and read the news from his iPad for a while before Jenny, pulling her luggage, emerged from the elevators. No makeup, hair still damp from being washed . . . Tommy thought she looked adorable.
Tommy rose and moved quickly toward her, anxious to read her reaction. She saw him and there was none. “What do you want, Tommy?”
Jenny said, blankly staring through him.
“To apologize. I’m so sorry that I reacted the way I did. I had no right to do that to you, but John, he’s the one person in the world . . . I just lost it.”
“The first half of that sounded like an apology and the second half sounded like an excuse. Which is it?” Jenny asked, crossing her arms.
“It’s an apology. I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter how much I hate John. It’s not your fault, and I can’t drag you into it.”
“I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I’m wondering if there was a little jealousy woven in there,” Jenny said playfully.
Tommy looked at her sheepishly and responded, “So that’s what that was. It’s still new to me.”
Interested, Jenny wanted to know more, but there wasn’t time to delve too deep. Knowing that Tommy had learned his lesson and that John had clearly manipulated the situation, she was more than ready to move on. “I do understand now how tough a setting that was for you.”
Tommy was startled by the speed of her opening up but quickly grasped the opportunity, “Great. Can we start over? Can you join me for coffee?”
“I would like to, but I can’t. I really need to get home to check on my dad,” Jenny said.
Tommy knew it was a good time to be patient. “I understand. When can I see you next?”
“I’m teaching a seminar on counseling troubled teens this week, but I’m free next weekend. Chicago or home?”
“I’ll call you during the week and we can decide. Does that work?”
“That would be great,” Jenny said. She moved toward Tommy to give him a hug. She cradled his neck in her right hand and whispered into his right ear, “You, we, could have had so much fun this weekend. I was ready for anything. Anything. Maybe next weekend, but we’ll see.”
Tommy’s flushed all over, and Jenny walked away.
32
Doug stumbled into work Monday morning, having predicted the extent of his hangover. What he had forgotten, though, was the voicemail message he left for the federal field agent on Saturday about the potential tie between Tommy and Pat. That had increased the interest level of Kyle Bremer, the field agent assigned to all matters related to McKinstry, along with Tommy and John’s former businesses. Pat’s new business was now deemed potentially related and also assigned to him.
Kyle was a young accountant who was newly introduced to forensic accounting, which he found far more interesting than the standard audit work he had been doing for the previous five years out of college. He had closely-shaved, dark brown hair on the sides of his head and an only slightly longer tuft on the top. Kyle’s eye color nearly matched the black of his pupils with thick eyebrows and a tea colored hue to his skin. He wore tight-fitting and stylish clothes. One would guess him to be straight off of fraternity row, but he was past beer drinking and goofing around, anxious to make a name for himself.
Doug and Kyle had not previously met, but Doug’s boss had given him Kyle's phone number, instructing him not to bother Kyle unless there was a reasonable amount of evidence that Tommy was involved in illegal market activity. Doug considered that Tommy, Pat, and Jenny being from the same place created enough of a tie. Being intrigued, but slightly confused by Doug’s half-drunk voicemail, Kyle called Doug back on Monday morning and arranged to meet for lunch just one block from Kyle's office. Doug filled Kyle in on what he knew of the potential tie between Pat and Tommy.
“So, the only thing you really have is this Jenny person being from the same town? My boss isn't going to be too happy you pulled me into this,” Kyle said.
“Hold on before you overreact. I have a voicemail message that you need to hear, plus just give me thirty minutes of your time, and I'm sure you—we—can find a tie. You young SEC guys must be wizzes with database stuff,” Doug continued.
“I work for the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. The CFTC is for commodities, and the SEC is for stocks,” Kyle explained.
“Oh yeah, kind of like a poor man's SEC?” Doug smirked.
“Funny. Do you really want my time or not?” Kyle asked.
“Yes. I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. Can you help me out?”
“Only because I'll show you I'm smarter than any SEC yahoo. Let's go back to my office. It won't even take thirty minutes if there are connections between the three,” Kyle stated.
Kyle tracked down Jenny’s last name and quickly matched up addresses, college transcripts and job histories. It was easy to see the overlap in their early adult lives. Just as clearly, they could see that Tommy had separated from the other two, so making a tie to Pat’s business wasn’t that apparent, but Kyle thought the cell phone was interesting enough to keep talking.
“Have you looked at other potential suspects?” Kyle asked.
Doug answered the qu
estion with a question. “For murder or market charges?”
“Either, I guess. One case is yours and one is mine,” Kyle stated.
“John made back forty million of the money he lost in the main business from some hedging strategy that Tommy and McKinstry have both tried to explain to me,” Doug responded.
“Not cool, from Tommy’s perspective but not illegal so it doesn’t sound like a motive for murder and he’s not banned from commodities trading, so nothing there,” Kyle concluded. “Anything else?” he then asked.
“John’s hedge partner also made forty million, so maybe there’s something there. It’s a company called RD something, I think, but there were too many shell companies for me to chase. I still don’t think that they did anything illegal, so it hasn’t been a priority,” Doug said.
“So, I should get on that when I have time,” Kyle said, stating the obvious.
“Better you than me, and you can show me how much smarter you are than an SEC guy,” Doug said, hoping to motivate Kyle. They kicked around next steps, including talking to John, Jenny, or Pat, but Doug, as usual, gravitated to leaning on Tommy, even though that hadn’t really been fruitful in the past. He was determined to get the upper hand with Tommy. Kyle was just excited to be part of any potential interrogation. Police work, particularly the interrogation, fascinated Kyle so the best strategy mattered little to him. They planned to visit Tommy at his home the next morning. Kyle went about his other business for the afternoon. Doug did some paperwork and called it a day by midafternoon.
The next morning, Doug and Kyle rang the buzzer at Tommy’s building. When Tommy heard who it was, he rested his head for a moment on the inside of the door, sighed deeply, and then buzzed them into the building. When they arrived at the door Tommy said, “What do you want now?”
“Nice to see you again, Tommy. This is Kyle Bremer from the CTFS or the CTFT . . . or something like that. Anyway, we’d like you to come with us down to my office for a discussion.”
“To tell you the truth, I was kind of getting tired of the false accusations regarding George’s death. Since you have your sidekick here, from the CFTC, I can only assume that now you’re looking at some market related charges,” Tommy stated.
“That’s right,” was Doug’s simple reply.
Feeling smug and superior to Doug, Tommy saw very little risk each time that they interacted. “As crazy as it sounds, I will go with you again. Let me tell you, this is going to be like the first time we met, Doug, where I will be doing the listening. That didn’t work out that well for you then. This is also my last time without you having an arrest warrant.”
For the third time, Tommy was ushered into the same room. He was getting more comfortable but kept reminding himself not to get too comfortable. Tommy actually caught Kyle and Doug off guard and started. “So, you must have some revelation about me being connected to Pat’s business. I’m anxious to hear it.”
“As a matter of fact, we do,” Doug said.
“Well, I figured as much with this young man here. Kyle, you said?” Tommy asked.
Kyle replied with authority, “Yes.”
Doug continued. “We see you’ve met with Jenny Landimere. How long do you think it will take us to connect you with Pat?”
Tommy was slightly surprised and worried about getting Jenny pulled further into the mess, but he maintained his composure. “Well, I have seen Jenny, so I might be running across Pat too, but that doesn’t mean you can connect me to his business.”
“We’ll see about that. Shouldn’t be too hard,” Doug said. “These young guys like Kyle, they’re so damn tech-savvy. Cell phone records, website browser data, emails, text messages, credit cards, security camera footage, whatever. I’ll put my money on him.” Doug nodded toward Kyle.
Tommy looked at Kyle and said, “Good luck.”
Kyle took Tommy’s smugness as a challenge and said, “I won’t need luck.”
“So, just another warning that you are doubling up the effort to crawl up my ass?” Tommy said. “This is getting old.”
Doug shifted gears. “No, there’s more. Did you have George working on any special projects before he died?”
“No, nothing,” Tommy replied.
“Well, then, it may be hard to explain this call that George made from Whitefish shortly before he died,” Doug said. “Listen to this.”
Finally, Tommy thought. The phone message. It was George’s voice.
“Hey, Tommy, it’s George. I took care of those special project records you wanted handled. They should be just fine.”
Doug appeared pretty happy with himself, and Kyle was watching like it was a movie. Tommy was clearly baffled by the message, but he jumped in quickly. “I have no idea what that message is about, but it just sounds like normal business to me.”
“Funny, it was just as the business was shutting down, so to me, it sounds like he was letting you know that he was covering your tracksfor the falsified projects that appeared in the database run from Environmental Verifications through the exchanges and back to Carbon Traders. Do I have that right, Kyle?” Doug said.
Kyle responded, “Yes, and it sounds like that to me, too.”
Defensive, Tommy spat, “That’s not what I hear. Besides, we already settled the potential fraud issues just a day or two before that message.”
Doug jumped in. “You’re getting a little confused, Tommy. I get that this isn’t about trades. From my perspective, this is about a motive for murder. Your agreement doesn’t cover that. I think that motive is somewhere in here. Sounds like George knew about and took care of something for you. Maybe something you didn’t want him talking to anyone about.”
“And if I may,” Kyle said, looking at Doug, “From my point of view, this actually is about market activity, too. If we can find any current activity that breached the original agreement, your protections are gone on the original fraud charges. And this cell phone that Doug found might be of interest.”
Doug laid a plastic bag with a damaged phone in it on the desk and said, “Maybe we'll find something on this cell phone that I saw you dump this weekend. My guess is that you called Pat, but that will take a bit to figure that out.”
Tommy looked helplessly at the cell phone, his burner phone, lying on the table in an evidence bag. “I guess it’s time for me to get an attorney. I’m done talking to you guys.”
Doug said, “That might be best. Sounds like you have some things to work out.”
Kyle gained confidence, his adrenaline soared. He had never experienced anything like this. The thrill was intoxicating. “While you’re talking to your attorney, I’ll get going on more connections between you and Pat.”
Doug added, “And I have enough to keep working on the murder case. We aren’t arresting you today, but don’t plan on leaving town without checking with me.”
“So, I guess we all have plenty to do,” Tommy said, and stood up to leave. “And I’ll pass on that ride home.”
Tommy dejectedly walked out of the building knowing that he underestimated Doug and Kyle and that it was time to make a very uncomfortable call. He sighed, anticipating a cold reception and punched numbers into his phone. The voice on the other end said, “Hi, this is Susan Hogan.”
“Hi Susan, it’s Tommy,” he said, tentatively.
“What do you want, Tommy?” Susan asked, irritated.
“I’m up to eyeballs in shit, and I don’t know where else to turn.” Tommy hoped that she still cared enough about him to help.
“There are thousands of attorneys in Chicago. There are plenty of other people who can help you,” Susan said.
“But you and your firm are the best, and to tell you the truth, I can’t afford the best right now unless you do me a favor.”
“We already worked for free keeping you out of jail when your business shut down.” Susan replied.
“Can you do it again?”
“You have a lot of nerve asking, given that we haven’t spoken since our br
eakup text.’”
“Wait, you broke up with me.”
“True, but I had to. You don’t love me, but I know that you really don’t get this relationship stuff. Anyway, how bad is it?” Susan asked.
“No charges yet, but I have the Chicago police investigating me for murder and the feds are checking into me violating my securities ban,” Tommy said sheepishly.
“What?! Are you kidding me, Tommy?”
“Wish I was,” is all Tommy could manage.
“To tell you the truth, I’m not so sure I should bother. I need to think about it, and I have to ask Sam. Can’t imagine he will be excited about the idea. You have to wait. We’ll see.” Susan didn’t wait for a response or an excuse from Tommy; she simply hung up.
33
Tommy knew that he had to level with Jenny to some extent about what was going on, at least the part about Kyle trying to identify a tie between Tommy and Pat’s business. Jenny had decided that Chicago was a better place to meet for the weekend. After spending the week training counselors and taking care of her dad, she wanted to get out of town; however, Tommy worried that Chicago was the wrong place for him right now. Tommy knew he would be happy wherever Jenny wanted to be, and they agreed that meeting anywhere other than the Intercontinental, where they had seen John, would be a good start. Jenny booked a room at the Swissotel near the river east of Michigan Street and made plans to meet Tommy in the lobby for drinks on Saturday evening.
When Jenny was away from home on weekends, one of her sisters would come into town to watch their dad. James insisted that Jenny stay at nice hotels, and he would pay. It was his way of saying thanks for all of the time Jenny spent caring for him.
The Squeeze Page 16