Cold Winter Rain

by Steven Gregory

  The present United States attorney for the Northern District, Katherine Parker, was the third female U.S. attorney in a row for the district. Back in 2000, George W. appointed a former state court judge to the post. The former judge’s husband, a wealthy businessman, had donated bushels of money to the Republican party.

  Barack Obama appointed a long-serving assistant United States attorney to the job. Her grandfather had served for two terms as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. An uncle serving on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals had died in 1989 when he attempted to disarm a man who walked just in front of him thorough a revolving door into the courthouse lobby in Houston, pulled out a gun and began firing at random. A federal marshal stepped out of the elevator, drew his weapon, and killed the lunatic with two shots.

  United States Attorney Katherine Parker did not keep me waiting. When Alston and I reached Parker’s outer office, Sanders was seated on a black tufted leather couch against a wall opposite a secretary’s desk. Otherwise, the room was empty.

  Sanders looked up at us.

  “They’re ready,” she said.

  At the same moment, the door to the inner office opened. A pretty young black woman, her hair held in back by some sort of leather and dowel contraption, came through and closed the door behind her.

  “Good morning, Agent Alston,” she said.

  “Good morning, Molly,” Alston said. Molly glanced at me. “This is Mr. Slate,” Alston told her. He made it sound like an apology.

  “So I expected,” said Molly. She nodded at me. “Mr. Slate.”

  “Molly,” I said.

  “I apologize, Mr. Slate. I am Molly Blevins, U.S. Attorney Parker’s legal assistant. Ms. Parker and the others are ready to see you now.” She opened the inner office door and gestured with her other hand for us to enter.

  Katherine Parker had arranged her office much like a number of judges I knew arranged theirs. Her desk sat on the diagonal in a corner of the room. Perpendicular to the desk were two conference tables arranged end-to-end to create one conference table around twelve feet in length.

  The walls were covered with bookshelves and prints of famous lawyers and presidents and a green felt wallpaper that would not have been out of place in a men’s club in London.

  Around the table sat three young assistant United States attorneys, and, seated at her desk, the United States attorney herself.

  Parker stood after we had entered the room and Molly Blevins had closed the door. Agents Sanders and Alston took seats at the table on my right. Parker wore a dark gray suit over a red silk blouse with vertical tuxedo pleats. She held gold-rimmed reading glasses in her left hand and wore minimal makeup.

  “Mr. Slate, my name is Katherine Parker,” she said. “I am the United States attorney in this district. Thank you for coming in for this meeting.”

  I nodded. “Thank you for the… .” I glanced at Alston. “The invitation.”

  “Please understand, Mr. Slate, that the leaders of my task force on this case were prepared to meet with you whenever you were ready. This office has committed substantial resources to this case, and your involvement represents a significant development. I hope Agent Sanders and Agent Alston made that clear.”

  She looked at Sanders, who raised her eyebrows slightly. “Well,” Parker said, sitting down. “Let’s get started. Mr. Clark?”

  One of the attorneys on my left sat forward.

  “Mr. Slate, Thomas Clark. The former U.S. attorney in this office appointed me to head this district’s task force on corruption in government. Ms. Parker kept me in that position. The task force… .”

  “Stop,” I said. “Task force? Government corruption?”

  Clark nodded. “Yes. The task force was formed five years ago… .”

  “Wait,” I held out a hand. “I appreciate that you have a presentation to make, Mr. Clark. But I didn’t sign on to any task force on government corruption. I’m not in politics, and I’m not interested in taking scalps from politicians. I’m just a simple guy who tries to help clients with problems. I was hired to find a missing girl. That’s all.”

  Katherine Parker spoke. “We understand and appreciate your position, Mr. Slate. All of us here, well, except Ms. Sanders, are lawyers. Ms. Sanders’ background, as you may know, is in forensic accounting. I’m sure we would all someday like to return to basics and lead uncomplicated lives. But when a person chooses to practice law or accounting, he or she leaves simplicity behind. I think you need to hear us out. I think you would show us that professional courtesy. Your reputation indicates that your behavior towards other professionals, other lawyers, has always been more respectful than your rhetoric. In any event, we can help each other here.”

  “I behave in a more civil manner than I talk. Some might say it’s the other way around. But, all right, Ms. Parker, you win. This time. I’m here. Might as well listen. I might learn something.” I thought of Don Kramer’s comment to me about knowing how to listen.

  “Indeed you might, as we may as well. Mr. Clark?”

  “Yes, thanks. Well, as I was saying, Mr. Slate, five years ago, Ms. Parker’s predecessor formed a task force on corruption in Alabama state government. Initially, that task force focused on corruption in the two-year college system, and its work led to indictments and prosecutions. After we discovered the connections among the persons of interest and defendants in that investigation and gambling interests, the office of the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Alabama launched an investigation into the influence of gambling money in state government. As you know, that investigation also led to indictments of gambling kingpins, lobbyists, and legislators. Even a few confessions and pleas of guilty.”

  “And several not guilty verdicts.”

  “Yes. But information turned up by that task force caused us here in this district to regroup our two-year college task force and start a new investigation into inroads made by elements of organized crime into state government.”

  Clark paused to take a sip of water.

  “And then our investigation took an unexpected turn.”

  He looked up from his notes and looked down the table at me. “You know where I’m headed now, don’t you?”

  “The oil and gas business,” I said.

  “You got it. Nearly everyone in Alabama has heard of the Exxon case. The State of Alabama sued Exxon for breach of contract because, it alleged, Exxon charged unrelated costs against Alabama’s share and cheated the state out of royalty payments. The Cunningham, Bounds firm out of Mobile represented the state and won a multi-billion dollar verdict.”

  “Most of the damages award was reversed on appeal,” I said.

  Clark nodded and sipped more water.

  “Yes.” He shrugged. “And that case had no relation to organized crime. But that is not our interest here. After the BP oil spill in the Gulf, the entire oil and gas industry viewed itself as having a target on its back. And maybe it did. Also not our interest.” He raised a palm. “Not our present interest.”

  I said, “So, let’s get to it. What is your present interest, and what does any of this have to do with finding Kris Kramer?”

  Katherine Parker answered the question. “Mr. Slate, this is confidential and off the record. Do I have your agreement on that?”

  I nodded.

  “We believe you may have in your possession information which would assist the United States in its investigation of corruption in government related to possible bribery of state officials in Alabama and other Southern states by entities in the oil and gas business. And yes, we think it may be related to Ms. Kramer’s disappearance. As you know, these FBI agents and others are working night and day on that case as well.”

  “The memory stick,” Alston said.

  “And possibly more,” Parker added.

  “Have you convened a grand jury?” I asked.

  “That is not only confidential, but secret, but for purposes of discussion in this room only, you may assume that we have co
nvened or will soon convene a grand jury on this case,” said Parker.

  “Then why didn’t you just issue a subpoena to Woolf White?”

  Clark answered. “We would have gotten there. We — ahh — we had information that Kramer was working on the case from the civil side. Nevertheless, the firm had not filed a lawsuit. And we knew we would face a barrage of objections on grounds of various privileges. Then Kris Kramer disappeared, and her father was killed.”

  “And then you showed up,” Parker said.

  “A stranger rides into town,” Agent Sanders said quietly enough so that only my end of the table heard.

  Clark continued. “There was always, also, the possibility that if Kramer and Woolf White did file a lawsuit, it would be a qui tam action, so we would be working together on the civil suit anyway.”

  “And you could use the civil suit for discovery in the criminal case,” I said.

  Clark nodded. “Well, maybe. There would have been limitations on that, but this office would not mind having both matters open.”

  “So now we all have a problem,” I told them.

  “Without problems, lawyers would be out of work,” Clark said. “You want to tell us about a new one?”

  I explained my new of counsel relationship with Woolf White and that asking me for information amounted to asking Bill Woolf for the same information. The table sat silent for what seemed like five minutes but was probably fifteen seconds.

  “Well, I guess we do, at that,” Parker said.

  “Thanks for the invitation,” I said. “It’s been enlightening. But at this point, I think we should all go somewhere else and do what we have to do. Your jobs are to prosecute criminals. I am not interested in trying to eliminate government corruption, noble though that pursuit may be. I am a simple person. My job is to find Kris Kramer. And from that I shall not waver.”

  I stood and turned toward the door.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Slate. For now,” Parker said.

  I nodded without turning around, opened the door, and closed it behind me.

  As I left the reception area after bidding goodbye to Molly Blevins, Agent Alston caught up to me.

  “Slate,” he said. He gestured toward a small conference room across from Katherine Parker’s office suite. “Step in here. I’m holding some property of yours.”

  We went into the conference room. Alston closed the door and handed my Glock back to me, then unstrapped the Ruger from his ankle and returned the small gun to me as well.

  “No metal detectors on the way out,” he said. “I could have handed you these outside, but Agent Sanders and I know your background. Take care, Slate.”

  “I appreciate your confidence,” I said.

  “Think about cooperating with us, Slate. Take the short way through this time instead of the long way around. You want to find a missing girl. So do we, and we want to finish this investigation.”

  “I’ll consider it,” I said.

  “Do that,” he said.

  No one searched me on my way out. I may have been the only ordinary citizen carrying two guns in a U.S. government facility anywhere on the planet.

  The marshals nodded politely as I walked through the turnstile exit.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I’d been spinning my wheels. I needed to return to basics.

  I’d been hired to find a missing girl. Her father had been working up a case that could send major political players and maybe even a few career criminals — calling them mobsters was so twentieth century — to prison. I’d received a note from someone who wanted me to “STAY OUT OF THE OIL & GAS BUSNESS.” Everyone, including me, seemed to think these facts were connected. I needed to find out whether they were.

  Returning to basics meant talking to the right people, maybe shaking someone’s cage, making something happen. Doing something even if it’s wrong, and letting the rough end drag.

  The employees of the federal government in that meeting wanted to find Kris Kramer no more and no less than they wanted to drink their dry martinis and eat their shrimp cocktails that night.

  But the AUSAs in the Northern District of Alabama lived and died for prosecuting corrupt Alabama politicians. That was where they made their bones. And got their names in the newspapers and the political blogs. They could and would do nothing for me aside from possibly having their technicians in Washington decipher the information on the thumb drive Akilah Ziyenga had entrusted to me. Corrupt politicians were not my gig. In Alabama, maybe everywhere, crooks in government were part of the background noise.

  Slogging back through the cold mist, heading toward the Sheraton, I checked my voice mail and saw that Sally had called. I hit reply without listening to the message. This time she answered.

  “Hi. Where are you?” I asked.

  “In my office. The girls and I sort of want to hang around together right now. Where are you?”

  “Walking the streets of Birmingham in the cold rain.” I told her about the incident at the Tutwiler and checking into the Sheraton and meeting with the U.S. attorney and her supporting cast. Then I said, “Look, I’m a little concerned about your safety. I’m going to ask my police contacts to increase patrols near your condo. I may have to go on a short trip.”

  “You know I can take care of myself. But if it makes you feel better, go ahead. Maybe it will make me feel better too.”

  “Good. I will make the call, and I will call you back later this afternoon.”

  I called Grubbs’ office. He was out, but when I left the message about patrols with his administrative assistant, she promised that she would see that Grubbs gave the order.

  Back at the hotel, I logged into the wireless network with the Mac and searched for Michael Godchaux in New Orleans.

  There were four, none with the telephone number in Kramer’s file. One Michael Godchaux, a guy I probably wouldn’t mind drinking a Dixie beer with, ran public relations for the Saints. After the allegations that Saints defensive players earned bounties for injuries to opposing quarterbacks and the sanctions against Saints coaches and front-office personnel, this fellow must have felt like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

  Another was a senior biology major at Tulane.

  A third practiced tax law with one of the oldest law firms in Louisiana. This one might be Kramer’s man, but a white shoe tax law practice, even in Louisiana, most likely did not put this fellow into intimate contact with the New Orleans Mob.

  The fourth Michael Godchaux had earned a degree in accounting at LSU, but I could find no information on this accountant Godchaux after he’d finished undergraduate school. That absence of information did not seem normal. Instinct told me this accountant Godchaux and the Godchaux in Kramer’s notes were the same man.

  I picked up my iPhone and keyed in the number for Michael Godchaux I’d memorized from Kramer’s notes.

  Before I called, I considered turning off the Show My Caller ID feature but decided that Godchaux would be more likely to speak with me if I left it on.

  Of course, no one answered; a default canned voice mail announcement played after six rings.

  I left a message asking the caller to contact me at the Woolf White law firm in Birmingham — I worked there, didn’t I? — and hung up.

  Ten seconds later, the iPhone rang and told me that the caller’s identity was blocked. When I answered, a man’s voice said “Did you call me, Mr. Slate?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Are you Michael Godchaux?”

  “You must know that, since you called me on this phone, but yes, I am Michael Godchaux.”

  “I could have keyed in the wrong number.”

  “Yes, but you didn’t. I’ve been expecting you to call.”

  “Then my hunch was right.”

  “What hunch?”

  “You aren’t the Michael Godchaux with the Saints, Michael Godchaux the tax lawyer, or Michael Godchaux the Tulane student. You are the Michael Godchaux who graduated cum laude from LSU in two double O two and
then dropped out of sight. Am I right?”

  “Hmm,” Godchaux said. “I don’t know. I don’t believe I am completely invisible. People do step aside when I exit an elevator. The doormen in the Quarter still try to entice me inside to see the girls. But I did go to LSU, I do have an accounting degree, and my previous employer did ask me to make sure I did not Google well.”

  “Where are you working now?”

  “I’m not. Look, I do want to speak with you, but further conversation needs to happen in person. How soon can you be in Louisiana?”

  I was tempted to say, about forty minutes, but Godchaux did not seem in a mood for explanations. “How about tomorrow morning?” I suggested.

  “All right,” he said. “When you get here, call this number again. I’ll give you instructions on meeting me somewhere downtown or in the Quarter. Don’t call me again until you’re south of Lake Pontchartrain.”

  The connection went dead.

  I called Sally and told her I’d be getting an early start in the morning for the flight to New Orleans and that I’d see her when I returned tomorrow afternoon.

  Then I called Bill Woolf and told him about the conversation with Godchaux. He listened without comment and told me to take care and to remember to take a pocket tape recorder with me to New Orleans. I checked the aviation weather on the Mac before shutting it down.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Sunday January 29

  Lakefront Airport, on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain, offers general aviation a close gateway to downtown New Orleans without mixing into the traffic around Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, which is actually in Kenner, Louisiana, west of New Orleans.

  In 2001, the city of New Orleans joined a growing list of cities that discarded long-used names for their airports and changed the names to honor either an illustrious local citizen or someone of national or international renown.

  New York changed Idlewild to JFK on Christmas Eve, 1963; a few presidents later, Washington, D.C., added Ronald Reagan’s last name to National Airport.