PrivateSector sd-4

by Brian Haig

  Grand Vistas was next, and multiple entries popped up. It appeared to be the kind of malleable title befitting everything from a porn site “for lovers of big-assed Latino women” to a tourist agency. Eventually, I found a company Web site.

  Your standard corporate logo popped on the screen, a huge Z, like Zorro, with a bunch of portals for everything from corporate information to job opportunities. I thought maybe I should start with the job openings. I might be needing one.

  Grand Vistas described itself as an international holding company registered in Bermuda with extensive investments and interests in telecommunications, zinc, diamond mines, gold mines, shipping, and heavy equipment leasing. Sounded like a company with identity issues. Nothing about owners or investors. Nothing about the corporate structure or its corporate officers. A few pictures of ships and mines representative of the company’s wide-spread businesses.

  Geez. Trojan wrappers offer more information.

  I dug the contact’s phone number out of the folder. I studied a long string of numbers that started with 0011, an overseas exchange, though I didn’t recognize the country code.

  I was connected to one of those metallic voices that spooled me through ten options, none of which sounded like who I wanted to speak with, I suppose, because I had no idea who I did want to speak with. I was finally allowed to punch nine for a real human being.

  “Grand Vistas. How may I help you?” answered a female voice, in English, but accented in some European flavor I couldn’t discern. I informed her I wanted to speak with somebody who knew how the corporation operated. She pointed out that a number of offices knew how the corporation operated, and couldn’t I be more specific. Accounting perhaps? Absolutely not, I replied. Legal? No, lawyers are assholes. Operations? Yes, fine.

  A voice eventually answered, “Philippe Jardeau.”

  I said, “Hello, Philippe, do you speak English?”

  “A leettle. Can I help you with sometheeng?”

  “I hope so. Name’s Bill… Bill Clinton, and I work for Morris Networks.”

  “Cleen-ton?” he asked with that odd way the French have of mistreating our vowels.

  “Of all names, right?”

  “I suppose.”

  “I always tell people I’m the one who did inhale.”

  “I’m sorry, I-”

  “Hey, get this. My wife’s name’s Monica. Wow, she catches some shit.” Well, enough with causing confusion about my telephonic disguise. I asked Philippe, “Hey, what’s your position in the company?”

  “I am the aseestant director for operations.”

  “Hey, I’ve got the right guy. Thing is, I’m working on a company audit, and the name of your conglomerate came up. I mean, we do all that swapping together every year.”

  “Swapping?”

  “Yeah-exchanging shares and utilization on each other’s networks.”

  “Ah… yes, I am familiar with theeez. ”

  “This audit is critical to us getting a big Defense Department contract.”

  “Okay. I see.”

  “And we’ve booked a lot of revenue from you guys. Eighty million, last quarter.”

  “Yes?”

  “Turns out our Defense Department has no record of you.”

  “And why is theez a problem?”

  “It’s a simple verification issue. Bureaucrats, right?”

  There was a long pause before he said, “I am afraid I cannot help you.”

  “Hey, pal, nothing hard here. Just name the telecommunications companies that are swapping with Morris.”

  “I, um… one moment.”

  Philippe must’ve had his hand over the mouthpiece because I could hear muffled voices. The language wasn’t English, but neither was it French.

  He then informed me, “We are a private company, yes? We do not divulge our holdings to outsiders.”

  “You know, I’m always telling Jason he screwed up not staying private. Now we have to wear our underwear outside our pants.”

  “This is your problem, Mr. Cleenton… not ours.”

  “Good point.” I asked, “Would you be more comfortable discussing this if I flew out and met with you? Tell me where and I’ll be on a plane tonight.”

  “No, that w-”

  “Philippe, this contract’s worth two billion big ones. Jason’s gonna get a big-time case of the ass if we lose it ’cause you guys are uptight about a meaningless confidentiality issue.”

  Another long pause, and I assumed Philippe was once again chatting with somebody in the background. He finally said, “What is your office in Morris Networks?”

  “I’m with the audit firm. I work with Barry Bosworth. Know him?”

  “Uh… no. A moment.” When he finally spoke, he said, “Direct your questions to Mr. Bosworth. Do not call and bother us again.” Abrupt tone, loud click, and an empty line.

  Boy, he sure tidied up the loose ends.

  I mean, in most ways, I knew nothing more than when I started. But in knowing that, I knew considerably more.

  Some companies stay private and forgo public money because they’re family firms and don’t want anybody else messing with the family jewels. Others because it’s an ego thing, and still others because they’re owned by paranoid control freaks like Howard Hughes and regard public stockholders as nasty germs. But even those companies are willing to list their holdings. I mean, to some degree, the whole capitalist game is a big-pecker contest, and what’s the fun if you don’t post your inches?

  So Grand Vistas was this mysterious holding company head-quartered on an island known for no taxes and laissez-faire rules regarding business. Both employees I’d spoken to were foreigners. Yet the lingua franca of the company wasn’t English, nor French, but nor did it sound Spanish or Asian. We were down to a hundred-some-odd languages, but good detective work often boils down to elimination rather than addition.

  More intriguing was that way Philippe kept slapping his palm over the mouthpiece to confer with whoever guided him through our conversation. I mean, there’s three kinds of folks with that kind of squeamishness-the military, spy agencies, and crooks.

  I went to the kitchen, yanked two steaks out of the refrigerator, found two potatoes in the cupboard, and started preparing lunch.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Anne Carrol hadn’t yet hit the news. Yet he was sure that within an hour her name would be the topic du jour in country stores, old ladies’ knitting groups, and police stations nationwide. Unbelievable what that monster did to her, folks would say, wagging their fingers and looking plainly horrified.

  If Fiorio garnered attention because of her fame and popularity, the pain inflicted on Anne Carrol’s fiercely punished body would cause an entire nation to clench its teeth and cry for the murderous bastard to be caught.

  Distasteful, but she had to be done in just that way. He sprayed another dose of Windex on the mirror and rubbed with enough vigor to purge every last trace of toothpaste or spit that might’ve splattered the surface. It was the sixth cleaning. But after all, he had spent a lot of time at the mirror, and there was no sense making a mistake at this stage. Modern techniques being what they were, DNA could be collected off a pinhead these days. The living room was done, every last surface scrubbed and rescrubbed with the best solvents money could buy. The closet-spotless. The kitchen sparkled. He had even rented a vacuum, for four hours running it back and forth and sucking up every particle and dustball. He had dumped the bags in a garbage receptacle at a mall three miles away. The clothes he’d worn over the past three weeks, the sheets he slept on, the pillows, everything had been hauled off and incinerated. The bicycle was buried in a seven-foot hole in some thick woods.

  A spanking new briefcase rested on the spotless table in the living room, and the final two profiles were inside. His next kill wouldn’t be done in this city, however. He had planned all along to ratchet up the heat here, and do her elsewhere. Her death would be different and no connection to the awful killer in D. C. wou
ld be imagined or construed. This wasn’t her hometown anyway, was it? That she’d come here wasn’t in his plans and he regarded it as a terrible inconvenience. Well, he’d just have to find a way to draw her out.

  He’d heard on the morning news that the corpse of a twenty-year-old GW student named John Negroponte had been discovered twelve miles outside D. C. on the canal towpath. From the damage to his bike and the catastrophic dent in his head, the police were assuming he’d been biking too fast, lost control, and slammed into a tree. A tragic accident; he probably hit a rut and somehow his helmet slipped off. A memorial service was scheduled at the GW University chapel, and the public was invited to attend.

  Two of the three rental cars were parked in the lot that bordered the hotel, freshly scrubbed and detailed, doors unlocked, keys tucked under the driver’s mats. In three hours, two associates would appear to drive the cars back to Philadelphia and their rental agencies. He’d be long gone, on the far side of Baltimore, driving the last rental car north to Boston for the next kill.

  The city of Washington would hold its breath for two or three days, and wonder where he’d strike next. After a week, the FBI and cops would be scratching their heads. On the corpses’ palms he had contracted for ten victims. The L. A. Killer promised five and delivered five. Their profilers had told them that he treated this as a wicked game of wits and would stake everything on winning.

  They conditioned themselves with their own procedures and techniques, and were always astonished when the killer didn’t play by the very rules they’d assumed he’d set.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Janet arrived at noon. she stepped inside, dropped her coat by the door, and immediately began wandering and snooping. Why do women do that? We go to their apartments and maybe wonder what brand of beer they stock. Usually, that’s something called “Lite” beer, which is really bubbly tap water, which is why I always bring my own. They’ll claw through our underwear drawers if they think they won’t be caught. And when they get caught, they say something silly, like, “Nope, no napkins here. Where do you keep them?”

  Anyway, my apartment is very compact, having a tiny living room, efficiency kitchen, and bedroom with a cramped bath. I am fairly neat and tidy, though it has been suggested that an interior decorator might make a few minor alterations. I’m no expert, but I believe the style of decor is labeled “This Pit Needs F-ing Work,” because some of my lady guests have mumbled words to the effect. It suits me and my needs, however.

  I know, for example, that the guiding rule of interior decoration is the need for every living room to have a dominating piece.

  Mine happens to be a sixty-inch big-screen TV, intravenously fed by a cable box. A few beaten-up bookshelves and a pair of reclining chairs strategically positioned six feet from the sixty-inch screen complete the decor. I have an obsession for bare white walls, and a thing against clutter, rugs, plants, side tables, lamps, and so forth. It took two men forty-five minutes to move me in, and will take probably less time to haul me out. Traveling light is practical when you’re in the Army, and obligatory when you have trouble finding bosses that like you.

  Janet was shaking her head. “You actually live here?” She swiftly said, “Oh… I’m sorry-you probably just moved in.”

  “Very funny.”

  She laughed. She said, “This pit needs work.” Right.

  Anyway, I wandered toward the tiny porch off my living room, where two steaks were grilling. She studied the mammoth TV a moment, then took the remote off the top, flipped it on, and asked, “Have you been watching?”

  “Should I have been?”

  “It’s a bad one, Sean.”

  Well, the channel was preset on ESPN, so she had to surf around a bit for Fox News. A stunning female reporter stood with a mike pressed to her lips, a tall gray office building and banged-up green Dumpster as backdrops, saying, “… when the call came into our Washington studio, the building you see behind me, claiming that a body was inside the Dumpster outside. Leslie Jackson, our studio manager, and a security guard went to check, and then notified the police. Though local authorities aren’t offering any details, we know from Leslie’s description that the newest victim was horribly mutilated. Her corpse was naked, her limbs were shattered from repeated blows by a heavy blunt object. In a disturbingly gruesome step, her nose had been cut off her face.”

  She took a question from the anchorperson, and replied, “No, Mark, the body has not yet been identified, though the FBI expect to know her identity later today. They also confirmed that her neck was broken, just like the other vic-”

  Janet abruptly hit the off button, then informed me, “Earlier they confirmed that four slash ten was written on her palm.”

  I flipped the steaks, and she joined me. She stood and stared off into the distance. The day was chilly and brisk. Dark clouds were sprinting and spiraling across the sky; a driving rainstorm appeared to be moving in, a typical mid-December day for Washington, and another woman would not live to see it.

  I threw the steaks on a plate and Janet followed as I carried them into the kitchen. I withdrew the potatoes from the oven. A bottle of red wine was open, breathing, as they say, though exactly how dead grapes breathe is an enigma I’m sure I don’t want answered. I filled a glass of wine for her and popped a beer for me. My kitchen was equipped with an eating counter and we both got comfortable.

  I asked, “By the way, what are the odds of William Murray getting convicted?”

  “What?”

  “William Murray?” The question was meant to throw her, but I was getting a blank look. “Mail fraud and conspiracy?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” And she did, indeed, appear perplexed.

  “Paragon Ventures?”

  “The company accused of the big Medicare scam?”

  “You know about it?”

  “Yes-everybody knows about it. It was all over the Boston Globe for weeks. The Boston DA’s office is handling it.”

  “Are you involved in the prosecution?”

  “What’s this about?”

  “Are you involved?”

  She shook her head. “Paragon Ventures is accused of committing a corporate crime. I work felonies, and I prosecute murders mostly. What’s this about?”

  “This morning I was dragged in front of a couple of the firm’s senior partners. The server we logged onto the other day showed that we downloaded two legal files. It happens that Culper, Hutch, and Westin is handling the defense for both parties.”

  “Oh… and you-”

  “Yes. I’m in very deep shit, accused of abetting your theft of confidential firm information that’s very injurious to two of their highly valued clients.”

  “That is deep shit.”

  “Put on your hip boots. You’re my accomplice.”

  She thought about this a moment, then asked, “And those files were supposed to be in Lisa’s e-mail?”

  “So the server says.” I added, “And I was assured that the server does not lie. And did you know it’s hooked up to some wildass clock in Greenwich that keeps it accurate to within three… whatevers?”

  “What?” she asked, somewhat distracted. “It’s ridiculous. You saw what I saw.”

  “I thought I did.”

  “You did. So… somebody doctored the files afterward. It’s the only explanation.”

  “No, it’s the most likely explanation.” Then I asked her, “Barry Bosworth, did Lisa ever mention him?”

  “Why? Do you think he’s involved with this?”

  “I have no reason to.”

  She stared at me for a few seconds, then said, “Over the course of the year, Lisa told me about a number of the people she worked with at your firm. I had the impression it’s a very… an unfriendly environment.” She added, “Bosworth was high on her list of people she didn’t trust or like.”

  “His wife and children don’t trust or like him. Specifics, please.”

  “Lisa complained about
him several times. He gave her a hard time, took credit for some of her better work, generally tried to undermine her. He saw her as a threat, and tried his best to harm her.”

  “The same Barry I know and love. What about Sally Westin?”

  “She was higher on the list than Barry.”

  “We’re talking about the same Sally?”

  She nodded, and she said, “Lisa mentioned several times that she thought something was strange and… No, actually, she said something was phony about her. I had the sense that her dislike of Westin was more personal than her feelings toward Bosworth. I think she regarded Sally as more dangerous.” She added, “I don’t know why.”

  I found this a bit confusing.

  I mean, Sally struck me as a hopeless case-not overly bright, lousy client skills, one of those unfortunate people who kill themselves trying… literally. Every firm has them, that guy or gal who sweats too hard, stays too late, too often, and spends too much time on their knees sucking up to partners. They think effort and suction will be their own just rewards. Not so. Just not so. In the highly competitive field of law, talent and brains are the tickets to the brass ring. I had observed no inkling of either in Miss Sally Westin.

  But regarding Sally, I also felt, as I mentioned, that something was odd, repressed, almost coiled. Knowing her tragic background, I supposed she was carrying around a bundle of confused emotions, bitter regrets, anger, guilt, and God knows what other poisonous attributes. The children of suicidal parents often have a heavy cross to bear, emptiness, unfulfillment, and confused destinies. But how that made Sally dangerous was a factor I had yet to figure out.

  I asked Janet, “Anybody else I should be careful of, know about, whatever?”

  She lifted her wineglass and stared down into the liquid. “Well, Cy Berger.”