Slipknot: A Private Investigator Crime and Suspense Mystery Thriller (California Corwin P. I. Mystery Series Book 3)

by D. D. VanDyke

  “Not all that big,” I said.

  “I suppose.” Davis parked at the shack and got out. I followed him inside.

  A large black man in jeans and a button-down shirt stood from behind a cheap desk. “Can I help you, officer?”

  “Yes. Just have a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “What’s this about?”

  “Ongoing investigation. I’m not at liberty to disclose details.”

  “I’m Brandon Jones, the operations manager here,” the man said, holding out his hand.

  Davis took it. “Deputy Mike Davis. This here’s my associate, Cal Corwin. So how long you been open?”

  “Just a month, since the permits came through. Haven’t really gotten into full swing yet, as you can see, but the vein already looks promising.”

  “Where does your funding come from?”

  Jones shrugged. “You’ll have to talk to Miles Marzetti about that. I just run the mine.”

  “Marzetti,” I echoed. “Of the Sacramento Marzettis.”

  “I guess. I just moved here from Pennsylvania.”

  “They do much gold mining in Pennsylvania?”

  “Some. But mining’s mining, more or less. Gold mining is easier than coal, I tell you what. Granite and quartz don’t collapse so often, and they don’t give off flammable dust. Just radon.”

  “How much you pulled out so far?”

  “Quite a bit, actually. I can’t disclose exact figures, you understand. Privileged information.” Jones smiled like a salesman. I wondered if he were telling the truth, and if not, which way he was fudging – up or down.

  I stepped back to signal Davis I was done asking questions, turning to look idly at some printouts tacked to the wall, and at some figures on a whiteboard I could see through the single interior door to the next room.

  “Do you refine the gold on site?” Davis asked.

  “Yes. That processor there does everything. It’s computerized. Ore goes in the front and pure gold comes out the back. Tailings exit into dump trucks to be hauled away to designated areas. Chemicals are ninety-nine-percent recycled, so it’s very clean. Soon, we’ll have four of them.”

  “What do you do with the gold?”

  “Armored car picks it up every day and takes it to a metals distributor outside of Wilton.”

  “Ever feel like it was at risk of hijacking?”

  Jones shrugged. “It’s valuable, but no more so than cash money. Besides, it’s not my responsibility once it leaves the site.”

  “Mind if we poke around?”

  “Sure, but don’t touch anything. And if you want to enter the shaft, you’ll have to have equipment and an escort.”

  Davis shook his head. “No need. Thanks for your time.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Outside, Davis and I walked over to the giant ore processor. I looked it up and down. “Ore in, gold out. Chemicals in there,” I pointed, “water pipes, liquid waste collector, tailings into these bins for the dump trucks to load. It’s a black box.”

  “Black box?”

  “Nobody really knows what goes on inside but the technicians.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Nobody really knows what’s supposed to come out either.”

  “What’s that mean? Looks pretty straightforward to me.”

  I led Davis over to the cruiser before speaking quietly. “They’re producing a lot of gold for an operation this size. Five hundred ounces or more a day. Half a million dollars, give or take, each and every day.”

  His eyebrows rose. “How do you know?”

  “While you were yakking, I was reading the writing on the wall in the next room. Figures were posted.”

  Davis’ brow furrowed. “So it’s a rich vein.”

  “Listen, Mike. That machine must have cost millions, with more on the way, plus trucks, gas, maintenance, the price of the land and the mineral rights, bonds for cleanup… and I see at least twenty employees. Plus the transport and guards. I’d guess operations cost fifty grand a day at most. So that’s a nine hundred percent profit over cost during the first month of operation. That’s not just good, or great. That’s unheard-of. And I doubt that gizmo can actually process the thousand tons in a day it takes even the best mine to yield five hundred ounces.”

  “So where’s the gold coming from?”

  “That’s one question. Another might be, ‘is it really pure gold’?”

  “I don’t really see where you’re going with this.” Davis got into the cruiser, and I followed suit.

  I said, “If it’s deliberately alloyed with something inexpensive, it would look like gold to the crew here. Only the guy tending the machine would know, because someone has to feed in the cheaper metal and tell the machine what to do. Everyone else would think it’s real. But why?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Defrauding investors is the obvious answer. And I can see why they wanted Kerry to run the show, to keep a close eye on the situation. But if the Conrads are major investors, why would they defraud themselves?”

  Davis stroked his jaw. “They wouldn’t. So you must be wrong. It’s just a lucky strike, like the Sutter’s Mill find that started the 1849 gold rush.”

  I closed my eyes and put my head back as the answer bubbled to the surface of my consciousness. I held up a finger and pulled out my phone. “No, it’s more than that. I have an idea, but let me confirm something.” I dialed Jindal, but the phone beeped and I realized we were too far into the hills to get service.

  “Mind telling me what you think?” Davis asked patiently.

  “Sure. Start driving, though. I need to get through to Jindal.”

  “Jindal?”

  “Jindal Singh. Day trader and money wizard.”

  Davis nodded and started the car, driving slowly down the gravel road away from the mine. “Go on. I’m listening.”

  “Money laundering is what I’m thinking. Fake gold to produce phantom profits. Dirty cash from the prescription drug traffic and whatever else Houdini does is funneled to the buyer, probably through a couple of shell corporations, to purchase the nonexistent gold and, voila, it becomes legitimate income. Deadwood Prospecting might not even be mining gold at all if they can recycle it into the production stream somehow.”

  “Follow the money,” Davis said heavily, eyes watching the road.

  “When they get all four processors put in they could launder sixty million dollars a month. Nobody would think to look too hard at a nice, clean, privately owned, non-polluting gold mine. And it’s nonpolluting because it’s not actually mining much gold, if any. The real crime is happening at the metals distributor, which ‘buys’ and ‘sells’ a whole bunch of nothing, then deposits the money among all its other, legitimate operations.”

  “Pretty amazing, that you figured all that out.” He pulled over into a small clearing. “Too bad. Now hand me your weapon.”

  Shock ran from my heart to my toes as I saw the muzzle of Davis’ .45 pointed at my sternum.

  Chapter 21

  Incredulity warred with fear as I gave him my first handgun. “Mike…”

  “Don’t say it, Cal. I didn’t want it to come to this. I did everything I could to steer you away, but you just couldn’t let it go. All you had to do was see what you were supposed to see. Now give me the holdout and the derringer.”

  I complied, slowly. “Mike, you’re a good cop! And a good man.”

  “Once, I was, maybe. But it’s too late for me now. I’m in too deep. That devil I was telling you about has me too.” He rolled down his window and tossed my firearms into the woods.

  “Whatever this is, we can work it out. My brother’s an FBI agent. He can arrange for immunity if you testify.”

  “I know how these things go, Cal. I know your journalist buddy’s been investigating, and the feds have begun sniffing around already. They won’t offer to trade me what they’ll get for free anyway.”

  “They will if we get ahead of it. Tomorrow
morning, or maybe the next day at the latest, things are going to break wide open. They’re going to come after everything and everyone connected to Houdini – but Mike, they still don’t know who he is! If you do, you can serve him up on a platter. I know they’d give you immunity for that!”

  “I’d never be a cop again.”

  I looked away. “There are worse things.” I gave a choking laugh. “You could be a private investigator.”

  “I’d rather be dead. Get out.”

  I turned back to him with, I’m ashamed to say, relief. “Is that where this is going? You plan to eat a bullet? Suicide’s a mortal sin, Mike. By your own beliefs, you’re sending your soul to hell.”

  “I’m not Catholic. I don’t believe God’s forgiveness has an earthly timeline. He’s forgiven me in advance for all my misdeeds. Doesn’t mean I can forgive myself. Now get out, or I’ll take you with me.”

  I moved to open my door, trying to stall. “But why? What’s so terrible that you’d leave Linda without a father just as she’s starting to get better?”

  Davis grunted as if punched in the gut. “You look after her, Cal. She likes you.”

  “Coward!” I screamed in his face, leaning deliberately into the barrel of his weapon. “Man up and face the music, Deputy. Do the right thing!” I reached out to put my hand on the big pistol.

  He didn’t move away, and didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, after a long, fraught moment, he seemed to deflate, and let me take the gun away from him. “Okay, Cal. Call your brother.”

  I let the hammer fall gently and got out of the car. “Don’t go anywhere, Mike. We’ll get through this.” Setting the gun on the roof, I spent several minutes finding my three weapons while trying to keep my eyes on Davis.

  When I got back in, I held his own gun on him. “Drive to someplace I can get a signal.”

  When we parked at Deadwood Gas and General Store, I got two bars, and I brought up Ron’s number. “Before I push this button, I need to know who Houdini is.”

  Davis spoke like a zombie. “He’s everyone, and no one.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “There is no Houdini. He doesn’t exist. He’s a boogeyman. He’s a she. He’s three shes.”

  I reiterated, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  He turned toward me with dead eyes. “Alice and Carol and Marilou. It’s them. The three devils. The rest of us work for them.”

  “Oh, my God. Your fiancée? Why?”

  “I love her.” He said it as if nothing else mattered. “When I found out…I was weak. I am weak. I couldn’t turn against her.”

  “Tell me the whole story.”

  “I can’t. There’s too much.”

  “The gist of it, then.”

  Davis cleared his throat. “When the Conrads moved to town a couple years ago, they brought millions with them. Dirty money, it turned out. They funded the new tract home developments, bought off the planning commission, I think. Most people were happy because property values rose and business picked up. The Conrads were smart and moved slowly. Didn’t overdo it.

  “Marilou never had enough for her junkets to Reno, though, and when Eric joined the Niners, she started selling information to them, to Bartlett, and then to the Conrads, who were already looking for new enterprises. I guess Jerry was teaching Carol the business of organized crime, and they brought in Kerry posing as their nephew.”

  “But what about Alice?”

  “Alice is an alcoholic, Cal. In recovery now, but not then. After her husband passed, she started drinking even more heavily, with no one around to put the brakes on. She was already mortgaged to the hilt, in debt to her eyeballs and about to lose the diner. It was her whole life. But even with town business improving, nobody would give her another loan. This was before she and I…”

  “…started dating?”

  “Stupid word for people in their forties.”

  “Go on.”

  “I guess she went to the Conrads and sold herself to them. Once she sobered up, she couldn’t get out from under. I’m not sure she really wanted to. The money was too good.” He made a sound of derision. “Soon after, I fell in love with her like a smitten teenager. Started fornicating with her. Rebound and loneliness, I guess. I should have known better. I should have paid attention when Linda didn’t like her, but I thought it was just jealousy. By the time I figured out what was going on, it was too late. I’d done unwitting favors for all of them, never once thinking anyone might be engaged in criminal conduct.”

  “I can imagine how it must have been.”

  “No, you can’t. When I tried to get out, they sat me down and showed me a blackmail file they had on me. Maybe if I’d gone straight to the FBI right then, I could have derailed the train, but I was weak. I wanted what Alice was giving me and I wanted a simple, quiet life in my simple, quiet town. I told myself that was what my sin was buying. And I told them they had to keep everything away from Granger’s Ford. Only the devil never honors his deals, does he?”

  I rubbed my neck and stared out the windshield at the cars and trucks passing or pulling in to get gas. “I guess not. Kerry and his small-time drug dealing was the leak in the dike. That, and all the other little cracks that eventually cause the dam to burst. Everyone sleeping around like a soap opera. Frank’s partying. The Niners meth and dope dealing. Bartlett’s corruption. Nothing ever really holds together and stays tight, not with flawed people involved. It had to come out eventually.”

  “If I get a deal, I want one for Alice too.”

  “I’ll try, but if she was in it willingly…”

  “Just…if they can go easy on her. Carol and Jerry were the real masterminds. The real Houdini, if there ever was one. And I’m sure they swapped tips and favors with the Marzetti clan and the Chicago mob. Carol dropped a few hints she wanted to eventually move to Sacramento and run for high office.”

  “Yeah, I could tell she was ambitious.” I cleared my throat. “You ready to talk to the FBI?”

  “Okay.”

  “Fine. Here we go.” I pushed the speed dial button and heard the tones of the numbers.

  At that moment, when I was distracted and lulled by Davis’ story, he yelled something and seized his gun with both big hands, twisting it out of my grip.

  I kicked at him and opened my door, trying to roll out onto the pavement before he had a chance to turn it on me.

  My shoulder slammed into a man’s shins and I heard a curse, and then the boom of the .45, once, twice. Something heavy fell onto me, shoving my face into the old, gravelly asphalt of the parking lot.

  I scrambled desperately on all fours until I got enough momentum to come to my feet, whirling as I drew my weapon to point it back toward the cruiser.

  Davis had already set the .45 on the seat and was showing me empty hands. Closer, on the ground, I could see the twisted body of a younger man, blood pooling around him. A small-caliber pistol, suppressor attached, lay near his hand.

  Turning him over, I recognized him from the fundraiser, the merc Thomas had spotted. He’d likely been the balcony shooter yesterday as well.

  Lifting my eyes, I said, “Thanks, Mike.”

  He nodded solemnly. “Sorry. Yesterday, I told them you were coming to see me. He must have followed us, waiting for his chance.”

  “Cal? Cal?” My brother’s tinny voice proceeded from my phone.

  I put it to my ear. “Yeah, Ron. I know who Houdini is, and I have a witness who will serve him up, but I need an immunity deal.”

  “Wha…okay. I’ll go talk to my boss right now. I don’t know what’s going to happen, though. Something big has got the chain of command rattled like I’ve never seen.”

  “That would be a draft of the Chronicle’s exposé on the Houdini organization. I don’t think it portrays the Bureau in a good light…yet. But Ron, this will be a huge feather in your cap if you can push the deal through.”

  “Who’s the witness?”

  I stared at Davis,
sitting with his hands folded in his lap. “A good man, Ron. Just a good man in a bad spot. Now hurry up and tell your boss to get back to me ASAP, or this opportunity may disappear.”

  I hung up and, after some difficulty, got put through to the FBI field office in Sacramento. I got the runaround until I used the magic words “contract killer” and “Houdini” in the same sentence. They promised to get a team on the road immediately.

  After that, I spent all my time keeping the growing crowds of onlookers back from the crime scene, Eventually Davis joined me, his uniform and imposing size helping immensely. We strung up some yellow tape and tiptoed around each other for half an hour, until my phone rang with Special-Agent-In-Charge Leon Gallagher on the other end, ready to make a deal for Davis. I felt like a sports agent as I negotiated on his behalf, eventually securing him immunity from all unlawful acts save treason, in exchange for complete cooperation.

  Soon after, two men in black – okay, a man and a woman in black – showed up in their equally black Suburban and black sunglasses. If they pulled out flashy things, I was ready to shoot somebody. Instead, they merely relieved us of our weapons and began the questioning.

  I talked and wrote statements for two hours straight as more and more law enforcement showed up – DEA, ATF, local sheriffs – and suddenly everyone wanted in on the act. The little general store probably never got such a day’s business.

  Eventually a helicopter with California Department of Justice markings landed in the parking lot and an elegant woman in her forties approached me. Her tailored suit, genuine pearls and understated Patek watch told me she was the one I needed to impress.

  “Ms. Corwin? Deputy Davis? I’m State Attorney General Pamela Ferris.”

  “Not a fed?” I said.

  “Our federal comrades can’t seem to agree on jurisdiction, so for now, I’m asserting state control. I assure you, I have the full backing of the Governor, and the Legislature has been called into emergency session.”

  “Never rains but it pours,” I replied, suddenly weary.