Double Shot of Scotch

by Cleveland, Peter

  Jason turned from the window and smiled.

  St. James sat next to Nathan, who was fidgeting nervously with a pen.

  “I asked you here today to share the unraveling of the Stevens case, the $23-million claim against Nathan’s firm and Global, and the death of Thomas Stevens.”

  The room went quiet; the tension was thick enough to cut with a knife.

  “On August 30, $23 million was discovered missing by Malachi, and the loss was reported to my friend Jason.”

  Jason nodded.

  “From there the investigation began.

  “Jason’s theory was that Stevens stole Malachi’s $23 million. Bill, on the other hand, believed Stevens had been kidnapped. Bill and Jason worked well together despite their theoretical differences, and in my view are beacons of cooperation among police forces.”

  Slate and Jason nodded in appreciation.

  “Can we get on with this?” Jensen said impatiently. “I’ve got business to attend to. Just give me my cheque and I’ll get the hell out of here.”

  “Most certainly, Mr. Jensen. But before we do anything, everyone would like to hear the story,” St. James said authoritatively.

  The red-faced Jensen scowled.

  “Going back to August 30, we recall there were no fingerprints in Stevens’s office, except his own. At the time I questioned how that could be. Even though cleaners had conducted a deep clean, I found it difficult to believe there’d be absolutely no prints, not even a single smudged one. On this score I was wrong. After speaking with three cleaning companies and personally observing a deep clean, I’m satisfied it is possible to have a room completely free of fingerprints.

  “Next there was Stevens’s computer. Wiped clean. This played hell with the conflicting theories of kidnapping versus theft. On the one hand, a clean computer suggested Stevens covering his tracks: the theft theory. On the other, a computer left behind suggested Stevens may have been taken suddenly, without time to gather what he was never without: the kidnapping theory.

  “These conflicting theories, I believe, were intended by Gyberson and Stevens, but for two different purposes.

  “Gyberson wanted misdirection, confusion, to throw everyone off his trail. Misdirection created by two possible scenarios: kidnapping or theft. Police would waste time running down each one, allowing more time for Gyberson to disappear.

  “Stevens’s passport being left in the home safe and no clothes or travel cases missing supported the kidnapping theory. If Stevens left the country, he’d need his passport and couldn’t obtain a replacement without it being reported to Bill. So, by all accounts, Stevens was most likely still in the United States.

  “If he had known about it at the time, Gyberson would have liked Stevens wiping his computer. It would strongly implicate him as a person of interest: a thief covering his tracks.

  “Stevens liked the two theories to keep his options open, to seek a new life elsewhere or to return to the old one if things didn’t work out. More on this in a few minutes.”

  St. James paused, opened a bottle of water, and downed a couple of mouthfuls before continuing.

  “Through the genius of Louis Smythe, we discovered that the computer was not wiped completely clean. There was a code buried deep in the hard drive. Not able to be found by the average computer user. Only by someone who knew where to look or more importantly, how to look. An expert. Someone like Louis.

  “I don’t believe Gyberson ever knew about the code. More about that in a few moments as well.”

  Smythe beamed from St. James’s praise.

  “If you were a thief, you wouldn’t leave a code about travel plans, a map for police to track you. It would be the first thing you’d erase. A computer wiped clean, but not completely clean, was significant.

  “Evidence gathered by Jason’s team supported Nathan’s belief that no one had access to Stevens’s computer but Stevens himself. So whatever was on it, or not on it, as the case may be, was by Stevens’s hand alone. Data erased would have been removed by Stevens. The code, found deep behind a number of hard drive partitions, was placed there by Stevens.

  “Stevens’s purpose for agreeing to misdirection was choice. Kidnapping meant he had the option of returning to the firm as a victim if he had second thoughts about taking on a new life. He would have pitched the kidnapping angle and been pitied for suffering under the hands of kidnappers.

  “If everything worked out in Stevens’s new life, he would continue to live it. If it didn’t, the story would have been that the kidnappers let him go, or his release had been negotiated. He could return to his old life. Kidnapping, not theft, would be a more palatable message for the firm. It would invite pity for being kidnapped rather than blame for stealing, and no one would be any the wiser. Of course, the firm had no knowledge of any of this at the time.

  “Choice for Stevens. Confusion for Gyberson.”

  St. James turned to Jensen.

  “At first I thought Stevens might have missed the code. An oversight when he wiped the computer. Then, when I reviewed his files supporting the 139 investments, I knew it wasn’t an oversight. Stevens was a very meticulous and deliberate man, not given to overlooking things. Weighing everything, it pointed to him leaving the code for us to find, if he was double-crossed. So that whoever double-crossed him could eventually be outed, punished when the code was broken.”

  “What was the purpose of the code?” Nathan said, his voice distressed.

  “It represented a plan for the thieves to be apart, far from each other when the theft occurred. It was a communication plan among themselves, flights each would take and when, what city they’d be in until things cooled down.”

  Dozer interrupted, “But you said Gyberson never knew about the code. How can it be a plan for all the thieves if the main thief didn’t know about it?”

  St. James smiled. “Gyberson was most certainly part of the plan, but he never knew Stevens wrote a code to describe it, to leave a trail behind, a trail to out Gyberson if he double-crossed him. If he returned a kidnapping victim, he’d just erase it. It would no longer have purpose because he could only return if he wasn’t double-crossed by Gyberson. To Gyberson, it was just a verbal plan.”

  “What made him so confident the code would be discovered, and more importantly, broken?” Dozer said with a confused look.

  “I imagine he thought a clean computer would raise enough suspicion that investigators would thoroughly search every corner of the hard drive for some sort of clue, or to confirm it actually was completely clean. Eventually the code would be found. Jason’s technology team would know where and how to look. And when they found it, they’d stop at nothing until it was broken.”

  “Huge gamble on Stevens’s part,” Dozer mused.

  St. James said, “Yes, it was. I have been speaking as if we knew Stevens and Gyberson were in cahoots. In fact, at this point we didn’t know for certain Stevens had anything to do with this. It was only alleged by Malachi.”

  He turned to Jason.

  “When you traced manifests for the flights in the code and found Gyberson travelling to Fargo with Stevens, that made it certain that Stevens at least started out as a member of Gyberson’s gang. But the fact that Stevens left the code in the first place meant he didn’t trust Gyberson.

  “Gyberson flirted with a flight attendant on the plane to Fargo to an extreme. She felt threatened and was about to report him to the captain. A man on the run usually doesn’t want attention drawn to himself. Unless, of course, it’s his seatmate he wants attention drawn to.

  “The attendant would remember two people travelling together: the obnoxious Gyberson and his seatmate. Gyberson joked and laughed with Stevens, so the attendant knew they were together.

  “Gyberson didn’t care what people thought of him. He was heading for a new life no matter what. He wasn’t contemplating the choice like Stevens. What he worried about was Stevens weakening, blowing the whistle on him. If everyone knew Stevens was part of it
, he’d have no credibility. So, Stevens could never go back to his old life. Gyberson was making sure Stevens wouldn’t have the choice he wanted. He could never leave Gyberson as a kidnap victim because the two looked like friends travelling together, not like kidnapper and victim. The stewardess Gyberson flirted with was meant to be a witness.

  “In the end, Stevens had no choice but to continue with the new life, whether he realized it or not. Neither one trusted the other, and each took steps to protect himself should one or the other double-cross him.

  “All this makes it certain Stevens wasn’t kidnapped.”

  Chapter 69

  Once again St. James paused to drink water.

  “Gyberson’s holding company, Macadamia Investments, was the only shareholder in The Carstairs Group, a company seemingly incorporated to build retirement homes. Carstairs needed money. Badly. But Macadamia didn’t have money to fund it: it was insolvent too. And Carstairs’s poor financial history meant no traditional lender or investor would touch it. Gyberson would have to find less conventional sources to finance his company.

  “Malachi would have me believe that Gyberson connected with Stevens because of Stevens’s reputation for handling the investments of wealthy people. Wealthy people take higher risks than conventional investors because they can afford to and usually don’t have many shareholders to answer to. Of course, they expect higher returns to compensate for additional risks, but Gyberson had nowhere else to turn. Isn’t that right, Malachi?”

  Jensen shrugged.

  St. James continued.

  “When I interviewed you, you said Stevens introduced you to Gyberson. But that wasn’t so, was it, Malachi?”

  Jensen scowled again.

  “You weren’t introduced to Gyberson by Stevens. It was the other way around. You introduced Gyberson to Stevens as someone who had contacted you looking for financial help. You never told Stevens that Gyberson was an old friend.”

  Surprise washed over the room.

  Jensen remained still and silent.

  “Stevens thought Gyberson was just another referral from you, someone you thought he could find money for. But Stevens wasn’t able to source funds from traditional sources. Macadamia was too far gone. So you ended up providing cash to help save the company, but not without a scheme.

  “Macadamia received financial transfusions from Jensen Holdings, amounting to the $23 million in question here. In exchange, Jensen Holdings received shares in Macadamia.

  “Then, Macadamia was to lend Carstairs the same $23 million to finish constructing a retirement home in Chicago.”

  Nathan interrupted. “Who owns the partially completed retirement home, Carstairs or Macadamia?”

  St. James turned to Nathan. “Macadamia owns the property. Carstairs was contracted to build the home. All Carstairs owned was the construction contract. It has no other assets.”

  “Then Macadamia has another asset besides shares in Carstairs. It owns land and a partially completed building.”

  “True,” St. James said. “Technically.”

  “Technically?” Nathan said.

  “Yes. Technically Macadamia has title to the land and unfinished building. But liens against the property by unpaid trades and a mortgage far exceed the value of the property in its unfinished state. There would be nothing left for Macadamia if Carstairs’s world ceased financially before finishing the retirement home.”

  “So the $23 million would be enough to finish the building? Wouldn’t that take care of the problem? Building’s worth much more finished, probably enough to settle the mortgage and liens,” Nathan pressed.

  “It could. If that’s what the money was actually used for,” St. James said after drinking water.

  Everyone looked puzzled.

  Jensen grunted in disgust.

  St. James turned to Jensen.

  “Money was transferred to Macadamia all right. And Macadamia’s shares were transferred to your holding company in return for the $23 million. But that’s when everything stopped. The injection into Macadamia never made it through to Carstairs’s bank account, did it, Malachi?”

  Jensen stared at the boardroom table, motionless.

  “Gyberson siphoned the $23 million from Macadamia’s bank account before it could make it into Carstairs’s. Then the money disappeared, along with Gyberson himself.”

  Everyone except Jensen gasped.

  “How do you know all this?” said a perplexed Nathan Strong.

  “When I went through Malachi’s investment records, I traced money transferred from Jensen Holdings to Macadamia, confirmed by emails between Jensen and Gyberson, and verified actual transfers on bank statements.

  “Stevens never had signing authority for Macadamia. Only Gyberson did. That meant that once money landed in Macadamia’s bank account, Stevens couldn’t possibly have stolen it. If money was stolen, it had to be by Gyberson. Gyberson also had signing authority in Carstairs. He controlled money in both companies. So, with a failing company and signing authority in both Macadamia and Carstairs, Gyberson had both motive and opportunity. The question at this point in the investigation was whether he actually took the money.

  “At this juncture, it was certain that Stevens didn’t steal the $23 million.”

  Chapter 70

  “Well, who did steal the money?” Anna asked impatiently.

  St. James finished the bottle of water and grabbed a second from the centre of the boardroom table. “All in good time, Anna.”

  Anna’s face clouded from suppressed annoyance.

  St. James carried on.

  “As our investigation progressed, I learned that over the years Gyberson illegally moved bits of income to an account in the Cayman National Bank, to an account in his name. The bank showed me records proving this last week. Money he couldn’t have paid tax on in the United States he took to Cayman by suitcase.

  “IRS records show Gyberson never declared more than $50,000 taxable income each year. Jason confirmed that. Certainly not enough income to build a $23 million nest egg, at least not the honest way. The only way to accumulate that amount of money was to not declare income in the United States over many years. It was tax evasion, one suitcase at a time, over many years. With periodic deposits and interest, the account grew to — guess what — $23 million.”

  Once again the room rumbled with expressions of surprise.

  “Because substantial losses were incurred by both Carstairs and Macadamia, liabilities mounted. Now Gyberson needed money in the United States, but he couldn’t transfer money back from Cayman without attracting tax and criminal charges. Bringing it back in suitcases, the same way it got there, would take too long. His creditors would soon be taking action. He needed money right away.

  “But Gyberson never intended to use Jensen Holdings’s $23 million to pay Carstairs’s creditors, nor Macadamia’s for that matter. If he did, he wouldn’t have anything left to live on. He intended to use it to finance his own disappearance. The creditors would be left high and dry. I believe when Fargo police wring out all the facts, they’ll discover Gyberson has $23 million stashed somewhere.”

  “In the Cayman National Bank?” Smythe suggested.

  “No, not Cayman,” St. James said confidently. “In the United States, where he needed it to be.

  “The only way for Gyberson to get $23 million in the United States quickly was to find someone with $23 million already here, someone who had reason to want the same amount in Cayman. That’s when Gyberson phoned Jensen and learned he was planning to retire to Cayman.”

  Jensen continued staring at the table.

  “You weren’t as smart as your old friend Stan, were you, Malachi? You didn’t take money outside the country in suitcases over a number of years. You hid money with friends here in the United States, also to avoid taxes. Now, with reporting rules banks face, you can’t move money offshore without declaring it and paying the tax. You were stuck. You couldn’t move your $23 million hidden here to support your r
etirement in Cayman without attracting attention. In effect, you’d be blowing the whistle on yourself.”

  Jensen remained still.

  “When I was in your office I saw the most recent financial statements for Jensen Holdings Inc.”

  “You what?” Jensen blurted. “You had no right to do that. Those are private statements of a private company. I swear to God I will sue your ass off for this!”

  St. James ignored the outburst.

  “Up to that point I thought Jensen Holdings was rolling in cash, profitable from many years of operations. But your company was losing money for some time because you expensed the funds you siphoned to hide with friends. Otherwise, Holdings would have been profitable. You purposely created your own losses to fund a $23 million retirement fund. Liabilities mounted in Jensen Holdings; liabilities that couldn’t be paid because you siphoned all Jensen Holdings’s resources. The company was insolvent, about to collapse under the weight of its own debt, just like Macadamia and Carstairs.

  “Holdings’s funds to invest came from syndicates, not financial institutions. Syndicates run by the mob. People who don’t tolerate losing money. People who will resort to anything to get their money back. Jensen Holdings was in debt to them big-time. And time was running out for you, Malachi. Just a matter of days before they’d show up on your doorstep. You had to escape. You had to get out of the United States to save your own life. To Cayman.

  “If you had left money in Holdings you could have repaid loans, if not all of them, then at least enough to keep the wolves away from the door for some time. But then you’d have nothing to retire on. No money to escape with.”

  St. James drank water.

  “And so, there we have it. Gyberson running from the insolvent Macadamia and Carstairs, and Jensen running from the insolvent Jensen Holdings. Each looking to finance an escape: Gyberson from angry creditors, Jensen from angry loan sharks.

  “You stole from the mob, Malachi. The sentence for that in the mob world is death.”

  “How can this possibly be blamed on us?” Nathan exclaimed.