Stone Eater (Will Finch Mystery Thriller Series Book 2)

by D. F. Bailey

  “Toby, you know how business works by now.”

  The topic seemed to shift and Toby tilted his head so that he could see Mr. W’s face.

  “Yes, I understand all that.”

  “Well our business, financial business in particular, is about minimizing risks. So I’m going to ask you to help me hedge our risk. Will you do that?”

  “Of course. No problem with that, sir. I’m willing to do what’s necessary. For the greater good,” he added. It was a phrase that he admired. It supported his idea of being indispensable.

  Dean reached for the camera standing next to the filing cabinet. Prior to Toby’s arrival in his office, he’d screwed the video recorder to the tripod and adjusted the height so that it was level to the height of Toby’s chair.

  “Good. Now I want you to think of everything that happened that night with Gianna. I’m going to ask you to tell the whole story, from beginning to end, while the camera’s running.”

  As he set the camera and tripod in place, Toby’s shoulders slumped into the back of the chair. A look of hesitation crossed his face.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t ever show the recording to anyone.” He smiled. “Think of this as a kind of insurance. So that I know what actually happened after you dropped me off at the office and continued on with Gianna. The insurance part is for memory’s sake. That’s why I want you to tell the absolute truth, nothing but the facts, so that I don’t confuse things later.”

  Toby nodded, but he could feel a knot in his throat. He tried to clear it with a light cough, then another.

  “But before the actual recording, let’s try a rehearsal first. You begin by stating your name and the date. Then you say that you’re recording this freely. Since I know what happened up to the point where I got out of the car in front of my office that same evening, I want you to start there. Begin by saying that you’d dropped me off. Then continue the story up to when you picked me up later the same night. What was it, two or three hours later? Then finish by saying something like, ‘that’s my memory of the facts.’ Something like that, okay?”

  Toby nodded and tried to swallow. “May I have some water, sir?”

  “Of course.” Dean Whitelaw smiled. He chose a tumbler from the silver platter on top of the office refrigerator. “Would you like some ice with that?”

  “Please sir.”

  He pressed the glass under the ice dispenser and looked at Toby. The ice dropped into the crystal glass with a bright ring that echoed in the dark room. Clink, clink, clink.

  Toby felt the heat in the air and pressed a hand to his collar. When he took a sip of water his throat eased open and he began to speak. Once the first few sentences escaped from his mouth, he felt as if a flood had opened from the middle of his torso and finally he could release the river of misery that he’d dammed inside his chest over the past two weeks.

  ※

  Dean Whitelaw’s waking nightmares darkened with every passing hour. Almost a month had passed since Raymond Toeplitz’s murder and the unforeseen demise of Mark Gruman. Since then Dean experienced little remorse or even a passing thought of contrition. His plan had been devised and executed, the necessary payments delivered in cash, the implicating evidence buried and forgotten.

  But now something changed. Gianna’s murder unravelled his sense of control, the notion that he could master any event and steer the course of his destiny. He never imagined that Gianna’s life would be forfeited as a consequence of his plotting. She’d never been a part of his personal or business plans. Yet now her death weighed on the family, especially on the shoulders of his step-brother, Franklin. The twins, Justin and Evan, seemed to suffer under an even greater burden and back at the office he could see the depression in their eyes, in their drawn faces and lifeless conversation.

  And so Gianna’s death began to tug at the threads of Dean’s elaborately woven conspiracy against Raymond Toeplitz. That Toeplitz had to be eliminated, he had no doubt. Toeplitz’s public announcement that he would deliver evidence to the DA in the fraud trial against Whitelaw, Whitelaw & Joss had sealed his fate. But when he planned to visit Gianna at the family lodge in Cannon Beach — a colossal error, but so typical of Toeplitz’s inability to grasp reality — Dean contacted his old friend, the Sheriff of Clatsop County, Mark Gruman. Dean drove up to Astoria and met privately in Gruman’s strange home, a leaky geodesic dome, the last property on a dirt road leading up to the forest. When their meeting concluded, Dean returned to Sausalito, assured that the brewing nightmare of Raymond Toeplitz’s treason would soon end. He only needed to coax the twins into leading Toeplitz up to Saddle Mountain on a sight-seeing tour prior to his return to San Francisco. When they reached Look Out Point near the far end of the barren switch-back road, his nephews would bid a farewell to Toeplitz and drive back to the lodge. They would never know that Gruman sat in wait for his victim. Only later would they suspect the role they’d played in his horrible demise.

  Eaten by a bear.

  His hands began to ache. He cradled them together, two clam shells laid back to back, and set them next to the pillow beside his face. Somehow he would have to stop all this. And now a new wave was cresting just ahead of him. The only question was, did he have the strength to keep swimming forward?

  ※

  By four A.M. Dean pulled himself from his bed and swallowed another prednisone pill. Then he wrapped his velvet smoking jacket over his shoulders, wandered downstairs to his office and plunked himself into his wingback chair. Despite the change of scene, he couldn’t shake his obsessions.

  For someone with such a silver tongue, how could Toby be so inept? So completely out of control? As Dean pondered his situation, he realized that answers to these questions were no longer relevant. Nonetheless, they plagued him because they revealed his own failure of judgment. Not only had he failed to assess the depth of Toby’s flaws, Dean had assumed that somehow Toby could contain them. Toby’s stupidity. His lack of imagination. His inability to appreciate his massive size and strength despite the congenital defects in his legs. And as a result of his weaknesses and failures, they now faced a test that might ruin them both.

  But with some extraordinary maneuvers and a little luck perhaps Dean could save himself. Maybe. He’d already taken the first step. Toby’s video confession provided testimony that Toby had acted alone and it provided an alibi that Dean had returned to his office during Gianna’s murder. The phone logs would confirm that he’d been talking with his partner in Moscow, an hour-long strategy session about launching the new cryptocurrency that Raymond Toeplitz developed for the firm over the past year. All the elements supporting the launch stood in place: the currency, its trademark, and the operating company that governed its circulation. All of it named “GIGcoin.”

  But who could imagine that a black bear would devour Toeplitz’s corpse on that God-forsaken dirt track in Oregon? And when it happened, no one at the firm could contain their astonishment. Nor the perverse pleasure. Certainly Toeplitz was a mathematical genius, but like the supremely dull Toby Squire, he had no appreciation of his own limitations.

  However, no one would describe Toeplitz as a complete fool. He’d hidden the evidence that he’d compiled for the fraud trial and then offered it all to the DA. Files that implicated the company with bitcoin’s massive losses. After his death, the mystery only deepened.

  Without Toeplitz’s evidence, the DA had to admit that he couldn’t advance the criminal prosecution. The judge promptly dismissed the case and provided a decisive victory for the Whitelaws. With his brother’s political reputation revived and their company’s collapse averted, all the elements of Dean’s plan to launch GIGcoin were instantly restored. Except for the GIGcoin software. Where had Toeplitz hidden it?

  With Gianna, of course. The only person in the world Toeplitz could trust. Dean imagined that Toeplitz passed the digital files to her, likely in a way she might not understand. Perhaps in a virtual cloud tied to her computer. Or in a flash drive. Once he hit on
this idea, Dean convinced himself that Toeplitz had done exactly that.

  He tapped a pencil against the leather desk blotter as he considered the ironies. The geek wanted two million dollars paid out in bitcoin. A tactic that revealed a savvy understanding. The transaction would be instantaneous and anonymous. An immediate money wash. And within minutes bitcoin could be turned into US dollars at dozens of online exchanges eager to take the place of Mt. Gox. Mt. Gox, where over four hundred and fifty million dollars had disappeared. Vanished!

  So clever. But could the blackmailing gimp possibly know who he was dealing with in Dean Whitelaw? Well, he would learn soon enough. There are those who bait hooks, and those who bite them.

  Things weren’t so dissimilar with Gianna. He’d set bait for her, too. All he’d needed was a lure that Gianna would find irresistible. It took him less than a day to dream up a tantalizing snare: a letter addressed to her from Raymond Toeplitz.

  When he’d called her number, he knew he’d have to sound contrite. Following Toeplitz’s death, Gianna’s dislike for Dean mutated into bitter hatred. Convincing her of anything would not be easy.

  “Gianna, don’t hang up on me,” he’d told her. “I have something to tell you about Raymond.”

  “What?” she’d demanded, the anger hard in her voice.

  “About his last wishes. We found a long note in his office. In his desk drawer. It’s not signed, but it’s from him, I can guarantee it. When you read it you’ll see it’s from him right away.”

  He’d waited, listening to her weary sighs.

  “What did he say?”

  “It’s far too personal. You wouldn’t want me to read it over the phone.” He’d paused to let this sink in, then continued: “Look. I know how you feel about me. But let’s be civil with one another. Come over to Sausalito tonight. Ginny made a creme brûlée. Her specialty.”

  After a long pause she’d said, “Okay. Just for an hour.”

  “Of course. That’s all we need.” He’d made the arrangements for him and Toby to pick her up and set down his phone. Gottcha.

  He planned to have Toby drop Dean and Gianna off at the house in Sausalito. Then Toby would return to her condo and slip into her home using the house key that Dean had found in Toeplitz’s desk drawer the day after his death. Another piece of luck! He’d discovered the key attached to a tag by a string. In Toeplitz’s delicate script two upper-case letters were written across the tag: G.W. Once inside, Toby would secure Gianna’s computer, any flash drives he came across, and all the company files he could find.

  But from the moment it began, the plan started to collapse. After they’d picked up Gianna from her condo, Alexei Malinin’s emergency call from Moscow dragged him back to the office so they could review the series of numbered accounts locked in the office safe. With Gianna sitting beside him in the back of the car, he devised a makeshift plan: Toby would drop Gianna off in Sausalito for dessert with Ginny. Dean would join them once he finished his business call. The two women always got along well and this would provide an opportunity to chat over dessert and a glass of wine, this time without Dean hovering in the background. Gianna nodded her agreement, almost happily, he remembered.

  Then his world collapsed.

  He called Toby moments after he concluded his conversation with Alexei. Toby said there’d been an accident. When Dean asked what kind of accident, Toby broke down on the phone. Through his blubbering, Dean realized that Gianna was dead.

  “Dead?!”

  “Yes,” Toby confessed in a wail. “Drowned somewhere below the bridge.”

  Hell, what a mess. He couldn’t think. He found himself literally walking around in circles in his office shouting inanities into his phone. When he came to his senses, he knew what had to be done. He sent Toby back to Gianna’s condo and instructed him to complete the job.

  In the meantime, he pondered his next moves. Another family scandal could ruin the launch of GIGcoin just after he’d revived all the critical tactics and alliances. But a personal tragedy might generate the opposite effect: public sympathy for a troubled family dedicated to public service. Yes, that would do nicely. And what better means to create the outpouring of affection than Gianna’s suicide? The charismatic golden girl recognized by almost everyone in the state, her troubled life abruptly ended by her own hand.

  He knew that since its construction more than fifteen hundred people had leapt to their deaths from the Golden Gate Bridge. Now that she’d drowned, the only missing element was Gianna’s suicide note. Within the hour he’d post it on her Facebook account and then destroy her computer. She’d plead for forgiveness and reveal the depth of her unrelieved depression following Raymond’s demise. It required nothing more than a few lines to show her complete despair. Taken together, their deaths formed a compound tragedy. The Romeo and Juliet of our times. The sympathetic media response would continue for weeks. Yes, he nodded to himself, the scheme was brilliant in every respect.

  When Toby returned with her computer in hand, Dean entered Raymond’s name into the password screen — so naïve — and typed her farewell note into Facebook: With each passing day, Raymond’s loss becomes more unbearable. Please don’t feel sorry for me. I loved you all, but can love no more. And if I can’t love, I can’t go on. G.

  But Dean couldn’t let the world look too closely at the spectacle of misfortune. He’d ensure the autopsy would report a suicide by drowning and nothing more. Money could buy that kind of discretion and he knew where to purchase it. He convinced his brother to cremate her body immediately and place the remains in the Whitelaw crypt in Mountain View Cemetery. An easy win, since cremation had been the family practice since the mid-1900s.

  But just as the overall plan was completed — the suicide note posted on Facebook, the computer dropped into San Francisco Bay from the stern of the Sausalito ferry, the autopsy signed and sealed away, the cremated remains presented in a gold-embossed urn, the private memorial service attended by the family clan and Gianna’s memory properly celebrated and mourned, her ashes finally interred — just when everything appeared to be settled, a new problem emerged: the blackmailing gimp and his DVD of Gianna’s abduction.

  And what did the fool imagine that he was selling for two million dollars? His camera? A hard copy of a plastic DVD? An assurance that all digital copies would be surrendered and destroyed? His promise of trust? Absurd!

  Dean Whitelaw now desired only one commodity: terminal silence. From the gimp and Toby Squire. The gimp, of course, failed to recognize that and according to the universal laws of ignorance, he would make a complete forfeiture. Sadly, Toby would never learn the price he’d pay for his blunders until it was too late.

  Dean unlocked his office safe and drew one of three disposable cellphones from the lower drawer. From the upper shelf he took the Smith & Wesson pistol, the Bodyguard 380, a compact semi-automatic that he slipped into his jacket pocket. He also took out the Millennium PT745. Both were untraceable pistols that he’d picked up years ago from a gun dealer in LA.

  He shut the vault, sauntered back to his chair, lit a new cigar and turned on one of the cellphones. He watched a digital wheel spin on the green screen and when it stopped, his gnarled, arthritic fingers tapped the text function and he keyed in the telephone number that the gimp had provided on the DVD.

  He then texted three words that would seal his fate: I’m a buyer.

  ※ — THIRTEEN — ※

  EVE HUNCHED OVER Will’s computer and studied another email from Gianna. Despite their initial hopes, Gianna’s Google account held no extended files. No documents, pictures, spreadsheets. However, years of email were stored in the cloud and Eve set out to examine the evidence at hand. The bulk of it bored her. No surprise in that, she told herself. So many of the messages resembled her diary entries: two- or three-line messages, reminders, afterthoughts. Compared to these pedestrian notes, however, the chain of email she traded with Ray Toeplitz was outrageous. The blushing, school-boy letters he sent to Gia
nna, and her replies to him, full of sexual desire and wanton craving made Eve smile.

  “They really had something,” she said to Will. “The old opposites-attract theory. It certainly worked in their case.”

  “Uh-huh.” He sat on the sofa overlooking the French doors that led onto his balcony and began to sort through the messages on his phone.

  “Unlike us. We follow the paired-twins model of attraction.”

  “Which is?”

  “Two clones find one another and bond like crazy glue.”

  “We’re not exactly clones.”

  “Okay,” she allowed. “Not in terms of gender.”

  “Not in terms of tattoos, either.” He thought of the rose rendered in full bloom on her shoulder blade. And the numerical tattoo hidden under her left biceps. When he’d asked about that, she’d said, “One day I’ll tell you. Not now.”

  “True enough. Is that because you’re tattoo-phobic?”

  “No,” he answered, “I simply can’t imagine an image or quote so immortal that I’d emblazon it on my hide. Not permanently.”

  “Oh, I can think of something.”

  “What?” He turned his head from the phone and looked at her.

  “A picture of a broken heart.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She looked at him and held his eyes. “Someone, somewhere broke your heart, darling. You haven’t told me about it yet, but I know it happened.”

  He shifted his attention back to his phone with a parting thought: “Don’t you think the twin-clone theory sounds a bit narcissistic?”

  “Really?” A hint of disenchantment crossed her face. “You think?”

  He didn’t look up. He scanned another series of office emails. Both Fiona and Wally had hit brick walls in their efforts to move the story forward. Fiona had discovered that every week or two, one of Senator Whitelaw’s twin sons, Justin, visited Café Claude, a jazz bar in the French quarter. But she’d been unable to corner him — not yet, at least. Meanwhile, the longer Wally tried to break through the media conspiracy promoting the false reports of Gianna’s suicide the more convinced he became of its certainty. Nobody can shut me out, he wrote, unless they have very deep pockets. But in this case, their pockets appear to be bottomless.