Leverage in Death--An Eve Dallas Novel

by J. D. Robb

  She set it aside to play with later.

  “Here’s what Peabody and I have.”

  She ran them through the interviews, the evidence, the theories.

  “So they’ve been at it since at least December,” Baxter calculated. “Had Rogan as the mark. Maybe had others, too, before they settled on him.”

  “I’d say the probability they had others as potentials is high,” Eve agreed. “He suited best.”

  “If it came down to balk and walk, what would they lose? A few months’ work,” Baxter considered, “whatever they paid for the e-toys and bomb—or paid a bomb maker. Not that big an investment.”

  “What were they investing in?” Trueheart wondered. “I can see a kind of domestic terrorism.”

  When he paused, Baxter circled a hand in the air. “Continue, young master.”

  “Well, Quantum’s a major company, one that caters to rich people. So maybe a fringe group with a political stance against the wealth, especially since they’re about to hook up with a company that caters to the average Joe. Setting off a bomb at Quantum’s main base, with its CEO and other brass there, it terrorizes, doesn’t it? Who isn’t going to think twice about booking a flight on Quantum for a while? And the company’s shaken up.”

  “Don’t forget Econo,” Peabody pointed out. “Same thing applies. Its CEO is hanging on, but that’s more luck of the draw, and she might not make it. So both companies are shaking.”

  “Econo takes a slap, maybe, for hooking up with rich guys.”

  “It’s an angle,” Eve said. “Why hasn’t anybody taken credit for the bombing? You want credit if you’re going to make the statement.”

  “Yes, sir, you do. Or they would,” Trueheart corrected.

  “It’s still big bucks in the mix,” Peabody said. “Big bucks to the beneficiaries. But it seems off to hit your own company.”

  “Some people’ll sell off. Knee-jerk,” Baxter said.

  “The beneficiaries?” Eve asked.

  “Shareholders. The stock’ll probably take a hit, both companies. It’s probably already taken a dive. Quantum can probably weather it unless they can’t get the ship righted in the next couple days. I don’t know how solid Econo is. The word is they needed this merger more than Quantum.”

  Interested, Eve slid her hands into her pockets. “You got that from statements from Quantum people at the crime scene?”

  “No. Financial news, market reports.” Baxter got up to get more coffee. “I dabble.”

  “Killing the merger, blowing up the heads of both companies and other brass, that doesn’t benefit the shareholders, the people who’d inherit?”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “If hurting them’s the motive, what’s the gain? Unless it’s not about gain, but bullshit screw the rich guys. Or revenge. And fuck me if it feels like revenge.”

  She paced the board. “We’re going to dig down, particularly on Quantum employees—current and former. They picked Rogan for a reason. You don’t pick him unless you know him or know enough about him to make him a mark. Maybe there’s a cross in the Econo staff, so we’ll look for it. And we need to find out if anyone outside the two companies knew the exact time, date, location of this meeting. Was that publicized, Baxter?”

  “All I read about it was they’d cleared the legal hurdles and it was likely to snap together sometime this week.”

  “So not in the media, but a lot of employees, and people talk. These two knew how much time they had, knew it was going down Monday morning, gambled—with damn good odds—Rogan would do what they told him to do. At the same time, if he didn’t, they built the plan to walk away.”

  “Lieutenant?” Trueheart didn’t raise his hand, but sort of lifted it from the table like he’d been about to. “Would the threat—the home invasion, the attack, strapping Rogan up and having him enter the building—even if he didn’t pull the trigger, wouldn’t it shake the companies anyway? Maybe nobody dies, but it’s bad media.”

  “That’s a good point, Detective. If hitting the companies was the motive, if what Dabbling Baxter says holds, they’d have accomplished it. Not as hard, but yeah, bad media reports. Start by finding out who didn’t show up for work—right down the line. Peabody, get on that. Baxter, you and Trueheart get back in the field, wrap up more interviews.”

  She turned back to the board. “Wait. Companies like that have food vendors and deliveries come in, right? Even if they have their own vending and break rooms. And they get package deliveries—messengers. Some of the execs probably use a car service. People sit in the back, babble on ’links. I’ll take that end.

  “Move out. Peabody, get a lock on this room. We might need it again.”

  When her detectives left, Eve pulled out her ’link and pushed her way through the winding process of speaking to Rudy Roe.

  He sounded both sleepy and hesitant. “Uh, Lieutenant Dallas?”

  “That’s right. I have a question. Did Paul Rogan, or your department, call in particular vendors? For in-office lunches or breaks?”

  “Paul liked QT—Quick ’n Tasty. They’ve got a place on the lobby level. Elsa would bring him their muffin of the day at ten.”

  “Elsa?”

  “I don’t know her last name. Or can’t remember. She handles most of QT’s deliveries for Quantum.”

  “Did she deliver to him directly, in his office?”

  “Most of the time she’d just drop off the order with me. He came out or called her in sometimes, just to ask how she was doing, but mostly she’d drop it off with me.”

  “Okay. What car service did he use?”

  “All Trans. I always requested Herbert as his driver.”

  “Did he use All Trans this morning?”

  “I … I don’t know. I can check.”

  “I’ll do that. Can you tell me who generally made deliveries, which messenger or delivery company?”

  “Quantum uses Global Express. For incoming, it depends on what that company uses.”

  “Thanks, this is helpful.”

  “Sissle. Sorry, I just remembered Elsa’s name. Elsa Sissle.”

  “Even more helpful. Get some rest, Rudy.”

  Pacing, Eve contacted QT, was told Elsa was out on a delivery. As she started to contact Global, Roarke came in.

  “Peabody said you’d likely be here.” As he walked to her, he scanned the board. “A hard day’s work, Lieutenant.” And skimmed a hand down her back.

  “I’d rather have a hard day’s work than a permanent day off, like the twelve on the board.”

  “The twelve includes Paul Rogan, I see.”

  “Dead’s dead.”

  “And dead makes him yours as well.”

  “Being a victim made him mine.”

  “How is he a victim?”

  “Let’s take it into my office, where there’s real coffee.”

  “Did you follow up your rodent soup with any actual food?” he asked as they started out.

  “I was going to, but the goddamn Candy Thief found my stash.”

  “Only in your world does candy qualify as actual food.”

  “You eat it. It tastes good.”

  They passed through the bullpen and into her office, where Roarke went to her AutoChef, programmed two coffees and a cup of chicken soup.

  “When did chicken soup get in there?”

  “When someone who loves his cop decided she might eat actual food if it was handy. You might check your own AC menu occasionally.”

  “I programmed the candy as an alfalfa smoothie, but it didn’t work.”

  “No one who knows you would fall for an alfalfa smoothie.”

  He had her there, so she dropped into her desk chair, ate the soup while she gave him the high and low points of the investigation.

  “So he killed himself and eleven others to save his family. How did they know he would?”

  Good question, Eve thought, but she expected no less from Roarke. “I want to talk to Mira, but I believe they’d ta
ken the time to target him specifically. There had to be other contenders, almost had to be. Then they took the time to torment him and his family, to keep giving him the choice, to keep asking the question: What would he do to save his wife and child? They broke him.”

  “I’d like to go over the security system, particularly as it’s one of mine. And the same with Callendar’s analysis. From what you’ve told me, neither of them had the skills, or the access to someone with the skills, to circumvent the security without considerable time and effort, but they got through nonetheless.”

  “Over two months of eroding it,” Eve pointed out. “So they focused on Rogan back in December, or before. I have the beneficiaries, but from what I can tell, the merger would be a good thing, financially, from their standpoint.”

  “It should be, yes.”

  “Why didn’t you go after a merger with Econo?”

  He took a seat, carefully, in Eve’s ass-biting visitors’ chair. “I already have an arm that competes with Econo. Buying them outright might have been interesting, but it would also have, almost certainly, tangled us up in regulations against monopolies.”

  “Were they for sale?”

  “Not currently.” With a shrug, he sipped at his coffee. “Down the road a bit, that might have changed. They’ve had some cash flow issues the last year or so, possibly due to their COO retiring and a few other factors. The merger would have shored those up, I’d think.”

  “So the merger is/was more beneficial for Econo than Quantum?”

  “Initially, but Quantum would expand into areas where Econo’s very solid and they’re not.” Again, carefully, Roarke settled back. “Quantum’s exclusivity is part of its appeal to those who want and can afford to have five-star transportation. It’s also their weakness, as the average person may want but can’t afford.”

  “Who benefits from it all going south?”

  “Well now, I will—in the short term at least. And other competitors.”

  “Why ‘short term’?”

  “Because despite today’s tragedy, the merger will almost certainly go through. It’s a deal nearly a year in the making.”

  “How do you know?”

  He gave her a mild look. “It’s my business to know. There have been murmurs about it since last winter, and paperwork dealing with the regulations of such things were filed several months ago, as bureaucracy takes its time, and everyone else’s.”

  “Did you know it was going down this morning? The merger?”

  “I did, yes.”

  “How—and don’t say it’s your business to know.”

  “It is, and there’s been chatter on it. Pearson’s son runs the London offices—and a bit of chatter came from there. His daughter left for Rome last week, another of Quantum’s HQs. All the BOD who aren’t based in New York traveled to New York last week. And the word has been the deal would be formalized today. Some window dressing first with a reveal of the marketing campaign this morning.”

  “So, okay, your average Joe wouldn’t know, or at least couldn’t know the ins and outs, but somebody in the same business or someone within the two companies would.”

  “Certainly. They’ve leaked enough to the media in the last few weeks that today’s formality was expected. But they held back details so they could do the splash. If Karson lives, and I hope she does—or if she dies—the deal should still go through. Unless her and Pearson’s heirs are idiots, all the reasons to merge remain in place. The negotiations are done, the deal is done but for the formal signing.”

  “So why the hell blow it up? It doesn’t make sense to do all of this just to kill Rogan, or Pearson, when a shiv in the throat in a dark alley’s quicker and easier.”

  “I agree. And if your conclusion is this wasn’t about killing any individual, I agree.”

  “What’s the point then?” she demanded. “What’s the goal if blowing up the meeting doesn’t stop the merger anyway?”

  “To disrupt,” he told her. “And in a big way, a media-frenzy way, a business way. What do people think of, instantly, when a suicide vest and bombs are employed?”

  “Terrorism.”

  “And what happens when terrorism is involved?”

  “Panic.”

  “Exactly. Not only do people panic, the markets panic. And in this case, Quantum Air and EconoLift are at the front and center of the attack. Due to that, the stocks of both companies took a deep dive this morning in trading.”

  “So they’re worth less than they were yesterday.”

  “Considerably less than they were before nine this morning, as panic drives people to sell, and once the stocks inch down, that rolls on with a kind of groupthink, and more sell. And those who play on the margins will find their shares sold out if they fall too far over the next couple of days.”

  She’d followed him, more or less, but now held up a hand. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means those who use loans for part of the buy, hoping to maximize profit while risking more loss. Simply, they buy ten dollars’ worth of stock, but borrow five, only having five of their own to invest. If the stock goes up to fifteen, they see a hundred percent profit. If it tanks, you’ll likely have a margin call, lose your investment, what you borrowed, and the interest and fees attached to the loan.”

  “It seems like a stupid way to do business.”

  “Playing in the margins is a gamble,” he acknowledged. “But can lead to profit. And you can use margins to create leverage.”

  “Like an advantage?”

  “It can be. In this case, leverage is taking on debt.”

  Now she wanted to pull at her hair. “Who wants to take on debt? People want to get out of debt.”

  “You take on debt to make profit.” He all but saw her eyes glaze, had to smile. “It’s why loan companies exist—taking on debt to make profit. Investors, serious ones, look at a company’s leverage, do an analysis. At this time, after the bombing, investors—those who either aren’t serious or simply panic—sell off rather than hold and wait.”

  “People dump the stocks so the price goes down. More people see the price going down, and they dump. That doesn’t benefit the heirs, or anybody holding the stocks.” She frowned at the board. “So what’s the point?”

  “What people sell, others buy. In a matter of hours stocks that were worth—to keep it simple again—a hundred a share are now selling for fifty. Buy them at fifty, wait until the dust settles and the merger goes through, sell them at a hundred, or likely more.”

  “If it doesn’t go through, you’ve lost fifty bucks—more if you worked the margin. Right?”

  “True enough, but it will go through. I’d wager quite a few representatives from both companies will issue statements either by end of business today or first thing in the morning stating just that. Someone taking advantage of this window—someone expecting this window to, let’s say, blow open? They’ll make a pretty pile in a short time.”

  She shoved up. “All of this?” She swung a hand at the board. “To play the fucking stock market?”

  “All of this, if this was the goal, to make a considerable amount of money in a short amount of time.”

  “How much? Ballpark it.”

  “I can’t say how much these people had to invest, but it’s a deep dive indeed. The sort where, say, a hundred thousand as a stake might turn into a million or more, and in the margin, considerably more.”

  “So we need to pursue the angle of investors. Look for people who plunked down investments when the stock took that dive.”

  “And good luck with it, as both companies are global, and so are their investors. Add such information isn’t readily available, or can be done under various covers and through shells. It’s a bloody clever scheme, if it follows those lines.”

  “It’s a goddamn con, is what it is.” And at least she understood a con. “Nothing but a goddamn con that took twelve lives, put eight more in the hospital, and scarred a kid and her mother.

&nb
sp; “Why didn’t they kill them, the kid and her mother?” she added. “Why leave witnesses? It doesn’t matter that they can’t describe you, they’re loose ends. If you were going to kill them if Rogan balked, why leave them alive once it’s done?”

  She turned back to Roarke. “Unless they weren’t going to kill them. That’s one. Or they’re too arrogant and cock-fucking-sure of themselves to think we’d get anything from the ones they let live. Hell, maybe both. I need to talk to Mira.”

  She walked to her skinny window, stared out. “What you laid out here, this theory? It makes the most sense of anything I’ve played around with in my head. It’s cold and it’s ugly, and it makes sense. How long do you figure before the stock goes back up?”

  “It depends.”

  She turned quickly, shook her head. “Fuck ‘depends.’ You’re the expert. If you were playing the game, when would you figure to cash in?”

  “It should start to climb once the companies announce the merger’s going through. It’s late in the day for it to recover altogether before the closing bell. But if the companies issue statements, if Pearson’s wife, son, daughter make them personally—which the board of directors will certainly push for—Quantum will start recovery. The same with Econo. And if they announce the merger as done, the stocks will rise as quickly and dramatically as they fell. The stock market runs, in large part, on emotions, feelings.”

  “So a big profit within about twenty-four hours.”

  “Yes. Unless all this is bollocks and someone inside one of the companies created all this for some sort of vendetta, and has a way—I can’t think of one at the moment—to stop the merger altogether.”

  “I was leaning that way. We’ll keep it in the mix. I need to process this, and I’m probably going to have more questions on market bullshit. Do you want to talk to Callendar?”

  “I’d like to, yes.”

  “She’s in the EDD lab, or was. Feeney and McNab are on this, too—and whatever other geeks he’s pulled in. A lot of e’s to sift through.”

  “I can lend a hand there until you’re ready for home.”