by J. D. Robb
“It’s listed as donations, charitable trusts, privatized income. I couldn’t dig deeper without specific names and companies.”
“The fees, the percentages. They’d likely be kickbacks, or hush money to the accountant, the lawyer. We’ll need to follow that, because it landed somewhere.”
The Inner Circle was an indoor golf course and driving range where aficionados of the sport could play a round, practice their putting, and have a friendly drink. For added fees, there were tony locker rooms with sports channels cued into wall screens, efficient attendants, shower facilities, and the services of a masseur or masseuse. The wet area included whirlpools, saunas, a lap pool, steam room.
They found Kraus in a party of four, on the ninth hole.
“A few minutes of your time,” Eve told him.
“Now?” His brows drew together under a tweed golf cap. “I’m in the middle of a round, with clients.”
“You’ll have to catch up later. Or I could walk along with you,” Eve said obligingly, “and we can discuss the discrepancies in the Bullock Foundation’s account in front of your clients.”
“Discrepancies? That’s ridiculous.” But he glanced at the woman and two men at his tee. “A moment.” He moved to them, hands spreading in apology. His face was full of annoyance as he walked back to Eve. “Now what’s this about?”
“It’s about a multimillion-dollar motive for murder. Natalie Copperfield came to you regarding questionable accounts in the Stuben and Company file.”
“Stuben? She did not. You asked me if she discussed anything of the sort regarding a client with me, and I told you she hadn’t.”
“The questionable accounts relate to the Bullock Foundation, which is your client. And your alibi for the murders.”
He flushed, glanced around. “Would you mind keeping your voice down?”
Eve merely shrugged and hooked her thumbs in her coat pockets. “If you have a problem with someone overhearing this conversation, we can take it back to Central.”
Looking thoroughly put out, he gestured for them to follow. “We’ll take this to the clubhouse.” Kraus strode off the ninth green toward an open patio under simulated sunlight, and after swiping a key card in a slot, gestured them to an umbrellaed table.
“I don’t know what you think you’ve come across,” he began.
“The laundering of funds through charitable trusts,” Roarke began. “The disbursement of funds claimed as tax exempt to subaccounts, which is then funneled back into the trust and redisbursed. It’s a clever circle, washing considerable income annually.”
“The Bullock Foundation is above reproach, as is our firm. What you’re saying is impossible.”
“Natalie Copperfield accessed the Bullock accounts.”
“I don’t understand you, and obviously you don’t understand how we run our business. Natalie wasn’t cleared for that data.”
“But you were. They’re yours. Her killer got her home unit, her discs. Got to her office unit and deleted files. But he couldn’t delete all of them, certainly not files that were on record as her clients. She changed the label on the file. The Bullock data was still there.”
“Why would she do such a thing?”
Eve leaned forward. “We’re going to get you cold for money laundering, for tax fraud. You’re going to want to talk to me now, if you want any kind of help with two counts, murder one.”
“I didn’t kill anyone. My God, are you insane?” His hand trembled a little as he pulled off his cap. “I’ve never doctored an account. It’s ludicrous.”
“Your wife states you played cards on the night of the murders until after midnight. And she was extremely tired. She went to bed, giving you more than enough time to get to Natalie Copperfield’s apartment. To break in, to restrain her, torture her, kill her, and take her data unit.”
He wasn’t just pale now, he was gray. “No.”
“From there, to travel to Bick Byson’s loft, struggle with him, stun him, restrain and question him before you killed him and took his data unit. Have you disposed of them already?”
“I’ve never hurt another human being in my life. I never left the house that night. My God, my God, what is happening?”
“So you let Bullock or Chase do the dirty work?”
“This is absurd. Of course not.”
“I’m going to get a warrant for your other files, Mr. Kraus. What you did with one, you did with others.”
“You can get a warrant for whatever you like. You’ll find nothing because I’ve done nothing. You’re mistaken about the Bullock accounts. Natalie must have been mistaken, because there can’t be anything wrong with them. Randall—”
Eve pounced. “What does Randall Sloan have to do with it?”
Kraus rubbed his hands over his face, then signaled to the waiter he’d initially waved away. “Scotch, straight up. A double. My God, my God.”
“What does Randall Sloan have to do with the Bullock account?”
“It’s his account. It’s my name of record, but it’s his account.”
“Why don’t you explain to me how that works?”
“He brought them into the firm, years ago. I had just come on as a junior partner. But his father wouldn’t allow him to head the account. There’d been some question of Randall’s reliability, his—ah—skills and work ethic. He’s better suited in public relations. But he brought the account in, and I was new. He came to me, asked me…It wasn’t precisely asking.”
Kraus took the glass the waiter brought him, downed a quick swallow. “I felt pressured, and to be honest, I thought it was unfair that he wasn’t given the account. So I agreed to keep my name on it, and he would do the actual business. I’d check the bottom line, of course, every quarter. And if there was any problem, any question, I’d take over. But the client was satisfied.”
“I bet they were,” Eve replied.
“She didn’t come to me. I swear to you, Natalie didn’t come to me about any problems, any questions.”
“Who knew that Sloan was doing the books for Bullock?”
“I didn’t think anyone did. He told me it was just a matter of pride, and I believed him. But he’d never hurt Natalie. She was almost like a daughter to him. This has to be some horrible mistake.”
“Does Madeline Bullock normally stay at your home when she and her son come to New York?”
“No. But Madeline was talking to my wife and mentioned that she loved our home, how welcoming it was, how peaceful. One thing led to another, and they agreed to stay with us. I need to see those records. I’m entitled to see them. I’m sure there’s just some misunderstanding.”
“Tell me about Randall Sloan’s lifestyle.”
“Please don’t ask me to speak behind the back of an associate. A friend. The son of my partner.”
Eve said nothing, just waited.
Kraus drank the rest of his scotch, signaled for another. “He gambles. Or he did. And poorly. There were rumors that some time ago—before I came to the firm—he skimmed a bit from one or two clients, and his father had to replace the funds. But he went into a program, for the gambling. There’s been no hint of anything improper for years. His father…Jacob’s a hard man, integrity is a god. His son smeared that. Randall will never be a partner. He accepts it. He prefers the work he does, in any case, to the administration, the accounting.”
“Yet he pressured you into giving him, under the table, we’ll say, a major account.”
“He brought them in,” Kraus repeated, and Eve nodded.
“Yeah, that’s interesting, isn’t it?”
You believe him,” Roarke said when they left Kraus sitting under the umbrella in the pseudosunlight with his head in his hands.
“Yeah. You?”
“I do, yes. The outsider, the last man in, so to speak, doing a favor for the big man’s son. It’s reasonable. And clever of Sloan and the Bullock people not to use each other for alibis.”
“You got a dupe, you use the dupe. Yo
u drive,” she told him, and gave him Randall Sloan’s address. “Looks like I’m tagging London again.”
She put in a transmission to Madeline Bullock’s home in London and got what she thought of as a Summerset clone. Not quite as bony in the face, she decided, but just as dour.
“Ms. Bullock is traveling.”
“Where?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“If Scotland Yard knocked on your door in the next thirty minutes, could you say then?”
He actually sniffed. “I could not.”
“Okay. Say the house burns down. How would you reach Ms. Bullock to tell her the bad news?”
“On her private number, on her pocket ’link.”
“Why don’t you give me that?”
“Lieutenant, I am under no obligation to provide foreign authorities with Ms. Bullock’s private business.”
“Got me there. But even in the colonies we have our ways of getting information.” She clicked off. “Do they go to school for that?” she demanded of Roarke. “Is there a Tight-Ass University? Did Summerset graduate cum laude?”
“First in his class. Do you want to drive while I find the number you need?”
“I somehow managed to fumble my way through such pesky chores before I met you.” She started the search, then stopped. Sat back. “You know what? I’ve got a better.” She got Feeney at home.
He was wearing a baggy and faded New York Liberties Arena Ball jersey with a ball cap pulled over his explosion of ginger hair. “There’s a costume party at your house and I didn’t get invited?”
“Game, two o’clock.”
“You look ridiculous.”
He pokered up. “My grandson gave me this jersey. You tag me on a Sunday to critique my wardrobe?”
“Need a quick one. I’m looking for a pocket ’link number, private, and its current location.”
“Game,” he repeated, “two o’clock.”
“Murder. Twenty-four/seven. It’ll be quick. I just need the number and the area. The fricking country. Madeline Bullock. It may be registered to her, or to the Bullock Foundation. Probably her as it’s a personal ’link. London home base.”
“Right, right, right,” he said. And hung up on her.
“I could have done that for you,” Roarke pointed out.
“You’re driving.” And she contacted Peabody. “Take another look at Randall Sloan. Finances, travel, property, real estate. He’s a gambler, so look at it with an eye to that.”
“You got a scent?”
“Yeah, I’m following it now. Mavis?”
“She conked. Been out about a half-hour.”
“Good. If I can track down Randall Sloan, I’m bringing him in for questioning. I’ll let you know.”
“Dallas, I’ve got that list of agencies and counselors from England. All European-based.”
She shifted gears, focused on Tandy. “Give them to the investigating officers, Rome and Middlesex. Meanwhile, run them yourself, zero in on any that have offices in both countries. Especially those that have multiple locations in Europe. And shoot them to my PPC while you’re at it.”
“Got that. Good luck.”
Eve rubbed her eyes, blinked them open.
“Why don’t you get a little sleep before we get to Sloan’s?”
She shook her head, wished she’d thought to bring a vat of coffee with her. “No way of knowing if she’s still alive. If it’s the baby they want, if they just went in there and took it out. She’d be, what, like a vessel.” Eve turned to Roarke. “When she gives up what she’s holding, she’s expendable.”
“You can’t do any more than you’re doing, Eve.”
“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be enough. If she’s alive, she has to be out of her mind with fear. Not just for herself, but the baby. You’re carrying that…potential inside you, it’s the whole focus of your world, I guess. You’re creating it, protecting it, bringing it—you know—forth. Through all the discomfort, inconvenience, pain, and blood and fear, it’s vital. Its health, its safety, that’s paramount. I see that in Mavis, the way she looks, holds herself, holds it.
“I don’t know if I’ve got that in me to give.”
“You have to be joking. Darling Eve, you give all that, and more, to complete strangers.”
“It’s the job.”
“It’s you.”
“You know how fucked up I am about kids, parents, the whole ball of it.”
He took her hand as he drove, brought it to his lips. “I know the two of us have strange, dark places inside us, and we might need some time for a little more light to seep in before we’re ready to add to the family we’ve already made.”
“Okay, good. More light. I’m for it.”
“Then I think we should have five or six.”
“Five or six what? What?” She thought…for a moment she thought her heart actually stopped. The buzz in her ears was so thick she barely heard his laugh. “That’s not funny.”
“It certainly was, especially from my point of view. You couldn’t see your face.”
“You know, one day, perhaps in our lifetime, medical science will find a way to implant an embryo into a man, incubating it there while said man waddles around looking like he swallowed and is unable to digest a pot-bellied pig. Then we’ll see what’s funny.”
“One of the many things I love you for is your delightful imagination.”
“Remember that when I put your name on the implant list. Why don’t people stay home on Sunday?” she wondered, bitterly, as she cued into the traffic. “What’s wrong with home? What kind of transpo did Bullock and her son take out of New York?”
“Another thing I love you for is the many and varied channels of your mind. No doubt private, given the depth of the Bullock wells.”
“Foundation shuttle. They came, ostensibly anyway, on foundation business. If they’re still traveling, they’ve probably made use of the same shuttle.”
“Where were they when you originally verified Kraus’s alibi?”
“I don’t know. Peabody did the verify, and she had to contact a foundation number and get a callback. It wasn’t pertinent at the time. But I can track that shuttle if I have to. Have to hack my way through international law and relations, and I hate that, but I’ve got enough to hold them for questioning. And I think the British government’s going to be very interested in their accounts.”
“They may take a hit there,” Roarke agreed. “But if they’re smart, and their legal representatives will be, they can dump that on Randall Sloan personally, and the firm.”
“I can tangle that, seeing as their legal reps fall under the same shadow. I’m going to have to turn this over to Global. After I talk to Randall Sloan.”
Randall Sloan lived in a trim and elegant old brownstone on the edge of Tribeca. From the sidewalk, Eve could see that the third floor had been converted into a solarium so that it was topped with curved, pale blue glass.
“He has a current driver’s license,” Eve said. “And keeps a vehicle four blocks from here in a private garage. Means, motive.”
“Opportunity is dicier, isn’t it, given that he has an alibi. Or do you think his dinner companions for that evening are covering for him?”
“Didn’t feel like it, but we’ll go back over that. He may have been a tool. Tools don’t always get dirty. If he didn’t do the murders himself, he knew about them.” She started up the three steps that led to the main entrance. “Alarm’s on green,” she pointed out.
As she lifted her hand to press the buzzer, she noticed there was more, and engaged her recorder.
“Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, and Roarke, Expert Civilian Consultant, at the residence of Sloan, Randall. Upon arrival I’ve found the security system disengaged and the front door unlatched.”
Automatically, she drew her weapon. She buzzed, and called out, “Randall Sloan, this is Lieutenant Dallas with the police. I have a civilian consultant with me. Please acknowledge.”
<
br /> She waited, ears cocked for any sound. “Mr. Sloan, I repeat, this is the police. Your residence is unsecured.” When there was no response, she circled around the line she had to walk, and eased the door open.
“Nothing in plain sight,” she stated. “He could have gone rabbit. I need a warrant.”
“Door’s open.”
“Yeah, and I could go in, check it out. I can argue probable cause, but without authorization I risk giving his lawyers something to whine about. I can get a warrant quick enough.”
She started to call in when someone hailed her from behind.
Turning, she saw Jake Sloan and Rochelle DeLay walking toward the house, hand-in-hand, faces rosy from the cold.
“Lieutenant, Jake and Rochelle, remember?”
“Yes. This is Roarke.”
“I recognize you.” As he came up the first step, Jake shot out a hand. “Good to meet you, and so you know, any time you’re looking for a young, hard-working accountant, I’m available.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“This is Rochelle.”
“Nice to meet you both.”
“You come to see Dad? He keeping you waiting in the cold?” Jake nodded toward the door. “It’s open.”
“We found it that way,” Eve told him.
“Really? That’s weird.” He moved by them and inside to give a shout. “Hey, Dad! You’ve got company. Come on in,” he said to Eve and Roarke. “We’re swinging by to get him for a Sunday deal at Grandpa’s.” Jake pulled off his watch cap, stuffed it messily in his coat pocket. “You want to have a seat? He must be upstairs.”
Eve had slipped her weapon into her pocket when he’d called out to her from the street, and kept her hand on it now. “Mind if I come with you?”
“Well…”
“Door was open, Jake, security off. It’s the cop in me.”
“Sure. Okay. He probably just opened it to look out for us. We’re running a little late. He forgot to engage it again. That’s all.”