by Rick Pullen
“Yes. But he hasn’t practiced in years. He’s a twofer—a lawyer and a politician—two of the least beloved occupations in America.”
“Followed closely behind in popularity by lobbyists and reporters.” Beck laughed at his own joke.
“You’re right. We all deserve one another.” Geneva sounded serious. Bringing up her husband reminded Beck he was treading on shaky ground. Not only was he stretching journalistic ethics by posing as a potential real estate client, but he was sleeping with another man’s wife. He tried to run through his mind how his life got so complicated so quickly.
He looked at her natural beauty—the strong jawline that drew his eyes to those chiseled cheekbones—and her body’s curves that made him constantly hunger for her. She was the whole package. But he felt a degree of unease. Was this real, or was he just chasing another pretty skirt? It certainly wouldn’t be his first venture down that slippery path.
AFTER A LIGHT LUNCH at another beachfront cafe, they headed for Kindred’s office near the back of the shopping center. Walking along the shaded sidewalk, Beck noticed a man in a white suit in the parking lot. He looked familiar. Beck’s chest pounded. Could he be the same one with the binoculars from the other day? Coincidence? He remembered the short-brimmed, white straw hat and the tall, lean figure. He felt his heart pump faster, but he said nothing to Geneva.
The front of Kindred’s law office had the same large plate-glass window as all the retail stores. It could have been a stationery store or a flower shop. Instead, large gold letters arched across the glass, announcing “Roger Kindred & Associates, Solicitors.”
The office was tucked back in the corner of the shopping center, near a cigar bar and behind a women’s clothing boutique. Beck pushed open the glass door. He saw a small empty waiting area and a vacant secretary’s desk at the far end. The air-conditioning sent a chill down the back of his neck.
“Hello?” Beck said loud enough to be heard in the next room.
A young woman dressed in khakis and a short-sleeve blue button-down shirt came out of a side door. Beck saw a book-lined conference room through the open doorway behind her. She introduced herself as Kindred’s paralegal. Her boss was running late with a real estate closing, she explained, and the secretary was out sick. Kindred should return in about fifteen minutes. She offered them coffee and cold drinks and disappeared into the book-lined room.
Beck stood fidgeting while Geneva sat on a couch and thumbed through old magazines fanned out on the waiting room coffee table. His hands became clammy. He felt a possible confrontation brewing. Game on, he thought. Pregame jitters, he told himself—the same feeling he got back in college just before a debate tournament. Then he and his teammate would step onto the stage and demolish their opposition.
Beck busied himself reading the various plaques on the wall: awards for good citizenship and lots of thank-you letters from charitable causes. He saw a picture of a Little League team that Kindred sponsored, a bar association award, grip-and-grin photos of a man—he assumed it was Kindred—receiving a plaque. He stepped to the next wall, where a dozen more photographs were hanging.
“Oh shit,” Beck said in a whisper. “Look at this.”
Geneva put down her magazine, rose from her seat, and walked toward him. On the wall was a picture ofJackson Oliver—Daniel Fahy’s boss—and Kindred standing together on a ski slope. Beck recognized
Oliver, remembering the photos he had pulled up on the screen in the newspaper’s library when he and Nancy were researching Fahy’s secret Justice Department memorandum.
The paralegal reappeared with two glasses of ice water.
Beck turned to her. “Is Mr. Kindred a friend of Jackson Oliver?”
“Oh, he’s his half brother,” she said. “Mr. Oliver’s father died when he was young, and his mother remarried a British gentleman.”
“Really,” Beck said. “I didn’t know he had a brother.”
“You know Mr. Oliver?”
Beck tried to take it all in. Kindred is tied directly to the Justice Department—to Dan Fahy’s boss. What does that mean? Fahy never said anything about this. Was Fahy leading him on? For the first time, Beck had a bad feeling about his entire investigation. He needed time to think and to sort things out.
“I think I’m coming down with something,” Beck said. “I’m beginning to feel nauseous. Do you mind if we reschedule our visit? I’m not feeling well.”
Geneva looked at him, puzzled.
“I’ll let Mr. Kindred know we will reschedule,” the paralegal said. “There must be something going around. First our secretary and now you.”
Beck took Geneva’s hand and led her out the office door into the heat and sunlight.
26
“What am I missing?” Geneva asked as they walked down the sidewalk in George Town. What had Beck seen that changed everything?
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I can’t talk to Kindred yet. Jackson Oliver is a big wheel in the Justice Department. I’m not sure of his title, but I remember he used to work in the White House.”
“I think you’re right. I’ve met him before, at some White House function,” Geneva said. “I think he worked for President Croom.”
“Oliver is somehow tied to the deals with Bayard, and he’s using his brother to facilitate them. That would explain why he delayed the Bayard investigation.”
“He did?”
“Yes. That’s how I got involved.” “I don’t understand.”
“Let’s just say there are honest people who want to see this investigation go forward—or at least up until now I thought they were honest. If we approached Kindred with what we know, he would only alert his brother. Here—follow me.” He took her by the arm as he pointed to a small outdoor beachfront restaurant covered by a giant canvas tarp. They ducked in and sat at the bar. The sun outside made the air boil, and yet a breeze off the water in the shade of the bar was moist and salty. Before two beers arrived, Beck was on his cell phone.
“Nancy? Any news?” He leaned against the bar staring straight ahead. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”
Geneva sat next to him, looking out over the water. The view was pale blue, and the breeze on her face made her skin tingle. She closed her eyes, feeling alive and yet relaxed. She turned to Beck as he spoke on the phone.
“Bingo . . . I knew it. It fits. It’s all coming together,” Beck said. “And, Nancy, you’ll never guess—Oliver is Kindred’s half brother . . . Yes . . . I’m not kidding . . . that’s right. His boss . . . Can you believe it? . . . I’m probably out of here in the next day or so . . . I’ll e-mail you details . . . Right . . . Super . . . Okay. Anything else?”
“Leslie found what? Really.” Beck was silent for what seemed like forever with his phone to his ear, listening to Nancy. “You sure? . . . Yeah, I’ve heard of them . . . Okay . . . Okay. Gotcha . . . Later.”
Beck hung up. He picked up his beer and took a big gulp. He exhaled and wiped his mouth and mustache with his bare arm, then placed the beer deliberately on the bar. Geneva could tell something was wrong. He turned to her. His eyes narrowed. He gritted his teeth.
“I just got some very interesting news,” he said.
“Oh?”
“It seems Serodynne is Lamurr’s competition for the Pentagon contract. Were you ever going to tell me?”
Geneva could feel the blood drain from her face. Her head felt light; her heart raced. She knew this moment would arrive at some point, yet she hadn’t prepared. She had let her feelings for Beck distract her.
“Jen?”
She looked up at him. Tears blurred her vision. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.” Her body shook as she attempted to talk. “Beck, I had no idea you were looking into my competitor’s bid for the contract until dinner the other night. I should have told you then. I panicked. I didn’t want to spoil our time together.” Her shoulders sagged, and she looked away. She glanced around at the bar and the ocean, then she touched his arm.
He pulled back.
“I guess I should have told you.”
“You guess?” Beck stood erect, towering over her. “Do you realize this could jeopardize my entire investigation? How will it look if it gets out that Serodynne is taking part in the Post-Examiner’s investigation of its chief competitor? I lose my credibility. I might as well pack up and leave now. Your company has a direct financial interest in seeing that Lamurr loses this contract and is found guilty of paying off Senator Bayard. Shit.” Beck slammed his fist on the bar.
Geneva jumped. She had never seen him angry.
“Now I’ll probably have to turn my story over to someone else on staff. Nancy will have my head. I’ll be totally fucked out of my own story. I won’t get credit for any of it. Shit.” He leaned on the bar, grasping his beer in both hands and shaking his head. “I can’t fucking believe this.”
Geneva looked at him as he squinted into the bright sun reflecting on the pale blue of the Caribbean Sea, refusing to look her way. She hadn’t realized how big a mistake she’d made by not telling him. She didn’t understand the rules of journalism. He had trusted her, and now she had jeopardized their relationship.
And yet, she had just lied again. She had suspected before they even flew to Grand Cayman that Beck might be working on her story.
“Damn it,” he said. “I should have checked on the Pentagon connection before I left DC. I was in too big of a rush to get down here.” Beck shook his head. He looked at the bottle of beer on the bar in front of him, then pushed it aside.
He turned to her. “You were asking about my professional ethics yesterday when I pulled that little acting stunt with that old man. I defended my con, because it was insignificant to the big picture. This isn’t. I crossed a huge ethical line with you several days ago and didn’t even know it. I’m investigating your competitor, and you’re helping me. That can’t continue.”
Geneva felt her chest ache, and she began to breathe heavily. She needed to will herself to take control. Grabbing her beer off the bar, she took a drink, and then a second, before she turned to him.
“Beck, it’s not like I’m doing anything you couldn’t do without me. I’m sorry. I don’t understand your rules. I didn’t come down here to ruin your story. I came here to be with you.”
It was time she fessed up to more. She needed to judge his reaction. She needed to salvage this. “Beck, I should have told you something else too. The FBI came to my office shortly before we met and asked about Lamurr’s relationship with Senator Bayard. An agent McCauley implied there was some payoff.”
“Payoff?” “Yes.”
“Who is this guy?”
“An agent. You know the type—a big guy. Not a goon, but very tall. Maybe late thirties.”
“What else did McCauley tell you?”
“Not really anything. He asked me if we had any financial relationship with Bayard and implied Lamurr might. Beck, I didn’t realize we both held pieces to the same puzzle,” she lied. “Honest, I didn’t know. I came here to be with this hot man I just met.”
He grinned.
Had she found a tender spot? She would push and find out. She couldn’t lose Beck. She both wanted him and needed him. He was the key to her future. “I think you’re one of the most fascinating men I’ve ever met. I don’t think straight when I’m around you, and I’ve obviously made some bad decisions. One of them was not telling you about Sero-dynne as soon as I understood what your story was about.”
Beck looked straight at her. His pale blue eyes sparkled in the reflection of the sea. Geneva felt herself weaken as she looked into them.
“This is both of our faults,” he said. “We’re personally involved. I’m personally involved. Things have just moved so quickly.”
“Will you forgive me?”
Beck looked at her without blinking. She needed an answer, but there wasn’t one.
Geneva bit her lip and attempted a smile. She slid off the barstool and into his arms and buried her face in his shoulder. He wrapped one limp arm around her. The other remained on the bar.
“I should have explained sooner why I was coming to Grand Cayman,” he said. Beck pushed back and looked at her, wiping a tear from her cheek. “But why? Why didn’t you tell me everything you knew sooner?”
This time Geneva didn’t speak. She could feel her lower lip quiver as they stared into each other’s eyes. She felt his faith in her slowly ebbing.
“Does anyone else know about Bayard and Lamurr?” he asked.
Geneva straightened and leaned against her barstool. “Serodynne’s corporate counsel, Sue Nijelski. She told me to keep it quiet. She said a false rumor could harm Serodynne. Now it may not be so false. This could run into hundreds of millions of dollars in lost profits for my employer.”
“You might be right.”
“What do you mean?”
“My call with Nancy just now. Sunrise Meridian is a subsidiary of Lamurr through a company it owns called XAX Ltd. Our stringer in Venezuela checked the corporate records in Caracas where Lamurr has a mining operation. That’s how Lamurr is funneling the money to Bayard’s corporation.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“Lamurr is bidding on the Pentagon contract. It owns a mining company in Venezuela. That mining company owns a small solar energy company, which has turned into a real estate investment company called Sunrise Meridian here in Cayman. So all Lamurr has to do is tell officials of its subsidiary to work out sweetheart deals with Bayard. Lamurr is twice removed from the money transfer, but it really controls the whole process in return for favors from Bayard.”
“Oh my God. There goes my Pentagon contract. He really is being paid off.”
“Yeah, and I may not be able to do anything about it,” Beck said. His disgust emanated from his sharp stare that locked on her while burning a hole in her heart. Then suddenly, he turned away and grabbed his warm beer off the bar.
Her turmoil lingered. Not even the warm gentle breeze or the soft melodic drumbeat of the languid ocean surf could wash it away.
27
Beck continued to eye her. She looked beautiful in another short sundress, this one dark blue with yellow flowers. The thin straps showed off her darkening tan and her cavernous cleavage. Her breasts alone were enough to undo him. He needed to start thinking about the task at hand instead of taking her to bed again.
“We can’t undo what’s already been done,” he said. “But going forward, this has got to be strictly my investigation all the way.”
“You’re the boss.”
He smiled. “Well, that’s a first.”
“You know what I mean, Mr. Rikki.” She curled her lower lip in a mock pout. Slowly, a smile emerged between her widening dimples. Her act was sexy and endearing, he thought, and he immediately felt vulnerable to her charms. Not this time, he told himself. He needed to keep her allure in perspective. His first allegiance was to his story, no matter what he felt for her. And now he wasn’t at all sure what that was.
“This story could become a family affair,” he said. “The half brother facilitates the bribe for Senator Bayard. And what is Oliver’s role? I think I’ll be spending the afternoon looking through land records to see if any have Mr. Oliver’s name on them. You can’t be a part of that. How about you pull docs on land sales in Bayard’s land development? There’s no harm in that. Whether you pull them or I do, it won’t change what they say. But you need to stay clear of my investigation from now on. You understand that?”
“Sure. I’ll keep my distance. But what are you looking for now?”
“I’m tracking money and looking for an Oliver connection. I need a paper trail.”
“Does it matter? I mean you still have enough for a story about Bayard taking payoffs. Don’t you?” she asked.
“Yeah, but it could be a bigger story if it involves Oliver. I’ll need to confront Kindred, but by myself this time.”
“I understand.”
He needed distance bet
ween Geneva and his investigation. This really didn’t fix the problem, but right now he needed to keep her involvement hidden from Nancy and Baker, his managing editor, until he could figure out what to do. This could be one of the biggest stories of his career, and he wasn’t going to let Geneva screw it up for him. One way or the other, he was going to find the truth about Lamurr’s payoffs to Bayard.
Beck pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called Kindred’s office. The paralegal said they could meet at one o’clock tomorrow. Beck apologized for becoming ill earlier and hung up.
As he stood to leave, he slowly slid his wooden barstool back into place, giving him time to look for the white straw hat. He saw nothing. He felt silly. He must be getting paranoid.
“Will your editor be okay with all of this?” Geneva asked.
“She doesn’t need to know.”
BACK AT THE GOVERNMENT records offices, Beck was determined to find ties to Jackson Oliver. Maybe Fahy’s suspicion about his boss was correct.
Beck scoured computer documents for three hours. Then he requested the clerk bring old deed index books out of storage. He turned the musty pages carefully for fear he might tear the brittle sheets. He ran his index finger down the columns of entries, finding nothing. He scanned the faded decades-old handwritten entries, created long before records were typed, scanned, and filed in a computer. There was no Jackson Oliver anywhere—not a deed in any book, nor a corporate filing or tax record on any computer screen he checked. Nothing.
Geneva had better luck. She found more than two dozen lot sales in Bayard’s development and dutifully made copies, stapled them together and stuffed them in her large canvas beach bag.
Beck loved her enthusiasm. He felt a tinge of guilt keeping her occupied with meaningless work and away from his investigation. But he knew he had to. And if she realized she was just doing busy work, she pretended not to care.
But he was still bothered by the lack of any paper trail tying Jackson Oliver to his brother’s legal work on Bayard’s sleazy land deals. There had to be something. But it sure didn’t exist on this island. He had exhausted every avenue.