High Crimes

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  “So, are they fucking me over?” Baldwin asked. “The Russians?”

  Vic glanced at the cabbie before answering, but the driver, bobbing his head to some unheard music streaming through his headphones, seemed oblivious to their conversation. Still, Baldwin should have been more cautious. Was he losing it?

  Vic lowered his voice. “Dimitri said he would run it by the ambassador and get back to me.”

  “That’s what he said the last time.”

  “I know.”

  “That means the FSB pricks are running the show.”

  Vic nodded. Their steady stream of “clients,” sanctioned by the FSB, the successor to the Russian spy agency KGB, were oligarchs from Russia and its former satellites. They had made Baldwin’s career. Sure, they wanted a financial break here, a tax break or favor—usually a lucrative one—there. But everyone had the right to ask. That was the essence of lobbying, Baldwin had taught Vic. If the client’s request had merit—and occasionally it did—it was a win-win for everyone. Still, the FSB was Putin’s eyes and ears, and its agents kept watch over all the oligarchs’ dealings. Nothing happened without Putin’s tacit or explicit say-so. And, apparently, he was saying no.

  The cab wound uphill on the Massachusetts Avenue exit and promptly got stuck in traffic. Why was this exit always backed up? Vic wondered. It didn’t matter what time of day it was; he always had to wait through two red lights.

  Recently, though, the Russians’ businesses, and consequently Carl’s business, were suffering. The weak American president, unable to lift Congress’s economic sanctions, had stymied the exchange of illicit financial favors. Times were tough on both sides of the pond. The problem was that the FSB and the oligarchs conveniently ignored reality, demanding more from Baldwin. And Carl didn’t have enough intel or profitable deals for them. The vise was tightening—inexorably.

  “After all I’ve done for those fuckers.” Baldwin drummed his fingers on the rear-seat armrest.

  The cab pulled up to Baldwin’s house, a tan brick mansion with white columns on Wyoming Avenue in Kalorama. A street, Baldwin never failed to remind Vic, on which Woodrow Wilson once lived. With William Taft on the next block. As if he expected Vic would someday point out to his children that Carl Baldwin had lived here too.

  Inside, a large central foyer with marble flooring was flanked by formal living and dining rooms. White columns separated those rooms from the rest of the first floor, which had been remodeled to house Baldwin and Associates. Only a few minutes from the K Street corridor and the Hill, the house was a shrewd buy. Kalorama offered much more for your money than Georgetown, Baldwin proclaimed, implying the congressmen, journalists, and VIPs who bought on N Street were fools.

  “Well, I’m not waiting around for the SOBs,” Carl said. “We’re still good with the arms deal. And fracking legislation. Let’s move those forward. Set up a lunch with the chairman of Energy and Commerce at the Four Seasons.”

  Vic paid the fare, and the two men exited the cab. The cabbie was still jabbering away in an unknown language on his cell.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Seven Months Before the Demonstration

  Dena sat behind her desk in the sprawling digs of the Baldwin Foundation in Chicago, located in River North. Her mother, Erica, had spared no expense on the office décor. Sleek cherry furniture was accented by old Pueblo tapestries, polished hardwood floors, and the ubiquitous bright white HVAC pipes that looped around the ceiling. LaSalle Street exec meets hippie Lakeview. Just Dena’s style. Chicago magazine had done a spread on it.

  But Dena felt as if she was trapped in a hamster wheel. She never enjoyed the work and disliked coming downtown, preferring to conduct business from her condo in Lincoln Square. Hell, since the election, she’d lost interest in foundation business altogether. At first her plan was to hunker down and wait for the nightmare of an illegitimate president to fade. But then she started ResistanceUSA. Its explosive growth, at ten thousand after only three weeks and now 42,000, was proof she’d tapped into something huge. Her time would be better spent managing and expanding the group. Who knew where it could lead?

  But today was a meeting with the foundation accountant, so she’d had to change from shorts to business casual and make her way to the River West building. She absentmindedly flipped her long braid and tried to focus on the documents in front of her, but they didn’t make a lot of sense. Her father had taught her how to read a P&L years earlier, along with the racing form. He laughed when she admitted she wasn’t sure which she liked best.

  “The apple don’t fall far from the tree,” he said.

  “Doesn’t, Dad. The word is ‘doesn’t.’”

  “Who the hell cares, baby?”

  She would frown at him in mock annoyance. Back then. Before.

  Now her gaze slid to a framed photograph taken five years earlier of them on her father’s sloop on Lake Michigan. She was hoisting the mainsail in her favorite blue bikini. Her father saluted as she did, as if she was raising the American flag. A hot Chicago sun beat down, and puffy white clouds in the distance signaled their approval. The world was good. It was a sweet moment, one of the few they’d shared. She’d thought many times that she should get rid of the photo. She didn’t want the reminder. He was the enemy now.

  She turned back to the financials. She didn’t quite grasp things, for example, how cumulative depreciation affected income. Hell, she wasn’t even sure what depreciation was. But Jeffrey would be studying the same documents; he’d catch any anomalies. He was good that way. In fact, she was glad when her brother gave up his acting career and came home to work at the foundation. Even more now that her own interest had waned. He seemed to be making up for lost time.

  She spun in her chair and peered out the window. The noontime July sun bounced off the sparkling water of the Chicago River, making everything look dazzlingly clean. Jeffrey’s acting career in LA had been a cover, a carefully constructed lie held close within the family. The truth was Jeffrey had been in prison. He’d majored in opioids, then heroin at Indiana, flunked out, and moved to LA. Half a dozen busts for possession with intent to sell had used up whatever clout came with the Baldwin name, and the family could no longer keep him out of prison. Sentenced to two years in a medium-security facility, Jeffrey had officially become the black sheep of the family, conspicuously expelled and ignored by their father.

  The Chicago media had discovered Jeffrey’s crimes, and to this day the family hated the reporter and newspaper that published the story. At the time, the coverage emphasized how wealth and prominence couldn’t shield a “bad seed.” Now, of course, the media was back, this time prowling for stories about Dena’s Resistance activities. She had learned to be cautious.

  But their mother never gave up on her son. Erica made the awkward visits to the California state prison in Solano, always optimistic and supportive. She encouraged Jeffrey to get his associate’s degree online. He studied finance and did so well that his last job in the prison before parole was “inventory manager” for the warden, keeping track of the prison’s kitchen and job-training equipment. Kind of a junior bookkeeper, he’d explained in a letter.

  The intercom buzzed and snapped Dena back to the present.

  She tapped a key on her phone “Yes. Lori?”

  “Jeffrey and Iris are here.”

  Iris kept the books for the foundation. “Show them in.”

  A moment later Iris came in. Petite and blond, she just missed being pretty—a forehead too high, eyes too small, a chin too pointy. Jeffrey followed, his face pinched with worry. They took their time seating themselves in the chairs opposite Dena. Once settled, they glanced at each other. Jeffrey nodded, giving Iris the okay.

  Iris cleared her throat. “We have a problem.”

  • • •

  Dena’s cell chirped that night just as she and Curt were drifting off. Dena opened an eye. A doobie lay in an ashtray, two empty bottles of beer flanking it. Behind the bottles lay her cell, its scre
en flashing.

  “Don’t get it,” Curt groaned.

  “I have to.” Dena groped for the cell and knocked over one of the bottles. “Shit.” She pulled the phone toward her. “Hello?”

  There was silence.

  “Hello?”

  Nothing.

  “I hope you never get sucked off again, you asswipe. Stop calling me.”

  The connection dropped. Dena silenced the phone and slammed it back on the bedside table.

  Curt rolled over. “Again?”

  She grunted.

  “That’s the third time this month. You need a new number. Unlisted this time.”

  “That doesn’t stop anyone these days.”

  He propped his head on an elbow and tried to shrug.

  She was quiet for a moment. “But you’re right. It’s time I did something. I’ve had it. I’m going to find out who it is.”

  Curt rubbed her back. “You okay?”

  “Everyone wants a piece of me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She sighed. “Today at the foundation . . .”

  “What happened?”

  “I can’t go into it. Family business. But I don’t know how much longer I can do two full-time jobs. Every time I turn around, someone wants me to do something for them.”

  “Ahh.” He took a lock of her hair and twirled it in his fingers. “But not as much as me.”

  She turned onto her side. “Is that right?” She gave him a sly smile.

  He took her smile as an invitation and scooted closer. She didn’t resist. He curled his arm around her and began to massage her butt.

  She arched toward him and slowly circled her hips.

  He lowered his voice to a whisper. “That’s right. Give it to me, Dena.”

  She kept rolling her hips, establishing a rhythm that Curt mimicked with pretend thrusts. On their sides, only inches apart, their bodies didn’t touch. But their eyes were locked on each other. Dena’s pulse sped up, and her body tightened, vibrating like a tuning fork. She kept rocking and reached for him. He was hard. She wanted him. Wanted him to take her. To drive everything out of her mind except the feel of him inside her. He clearly felt the same way because he suddenly, violently rolled her onto her back and shoved himself in deep.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Present

  The next day Georgia inserted a flash drive containing the contents of Dena’s laptop into her own computer. Dena’s data was now in her possession. She’d had a brainstorm the night before and called Jeffrey Baldwin.

  “Hi, Jeffrey. Georgia Davis.”

  “Yes . . .” He didn’t sound enthusiastic to hear from her.

  “Did Dena have a computer at the foundation? Or did she bring her personal laptop to the office?”

  “She had an iMac, just like me.”

  “Really?”

  “Mom went all out when she set up the foundation.”

  “Would you know if it was synced to her laptop or iCloud?”

  “It was. Mine is too.”

  Georgia could hardly suppress her elation. “Can I come down first thing in the morning and make a copy of her hard drive?”

  “Sure, but if you don’t mind, let me make the copy. I’ll have a flash drive ready for you.”

  Georgia wasn’t sure why he’d want to make it himself, but she couldn’t think of a reason why he shouldn’t. “What time do you get in?”

  “I’m there by eight.”

  “Okay. I’ll be there by eight too.”

  She smiled. Score one for the PI. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder why LeJeune had been so brusque with her yesterday. Part of it was likely an attempt to make her feel like a second-class citizen because she was a PI with no official standing. But was part of it—even a little bit—because she was a woman?

  Whatever it was, she forced herself to let it go and booted up her laptop. Vanna had taken Charlie to a Moms and Tots class, and a few solid hours examining Dena’s data might reveal some authentic clues.

  Her first surprise was the absence of a password restricting access to the laptop. Georgia had assumed Dena was a sophisticated user. She had to know about all the security breaches that had exposed the information of millions of Americans. Did she think she was immune? That she had special dispensation from the hacker gods? Georgia sighed. Generation Z was supposed to be tech savvy. Was Dena playing with fire? Or did the FBI disable her password for easier access?

  Georgia clicked on Chrome, brought up all of Dena’s other passwords, and printed out the list. Then she logged into Dena’s Facebook account. Twenty-five hundred twenty-two unread messages. Christ. It would take days to go through them. As the group’s founder, Dena was also one of the administrators. She’d probably configured the settings so that in addition to herself, the other administrators got every message and comment generated by the group so they could monitor and approve them before they posted.

  She was scrolling through the subject lines of the messages when she realized Ruth had already given her a lead. The guy who said he was in love with Dena. Georgia checked her notes. Willie Remson. From Maryland. She typed his name into the search box, which took her to his Facebook page. The page was public, which meant anyone could see his profile. The first thing Georgia noticed was dozens of family pictures. She clicked through them: an attractive dark-haired woman and two towheaded kids at a swimming pool. The same group standing in front of a minivan, the kids dressed for Halloween. Was Remson trying to prove what a family man he was?

  She went back to Dena’s messages and scrolled to the first one from Remson. They started in February and ran through May. The early notes were friendly but distant. Remson asked about the group, told her he was experienced in social media, and offered to help. Within a couple of weeks, however, Dena started to ask him provocative questions and leave comments with double entendres. Flirtatious. It only took him a minute to reply in equal fashion. Georgia leaned forward. Dena must have checked out his Facebook page and seen the family pictures. But she still went after him.

  Which was Georgia’s second surprise. According to Ruth, Dena had claimed Remson initiated the relationship. But Dena seemed to be the one leading him on. If Ruth was wrong, and it was Dena who pursued the relationship, knowing he was a married man, why tell Ruth something different? In fact, why tell Ruth at all? People usually kept an affair secret. Especially since Dena was already in a relationship with Curt. It didn’t make sense.

  The following week the message chain grew more personal and erotic. Both made pronouncements about the lack of trust and love in their lives, pronouncements they claimed they had never told anyone until now. Within a week they talked about meeting in a neutral city like Vegas.

  Georgia blew out a breath. Why was Dena toying with this man, a married man at that? And then revealing it to another member of the group?

  She read on. Dena had written:

  Now, go with me on this. Imagine we meet for the first time in the lobby of a hotel on the strip. We decide to share a drink at the bar. Even though it’s mid-afternoon, the bar is dim and quiet. I order a Chardonnay. You have a draft. Both of us check out the other. I decide you’re hot. I tell you so. Then you—

  Then she stopped. Your turn now . . .

  Remson picked up on it right away. I can see your breasts through your T-shirt. You’re not wearing a bra. I want to touch your nipples.

  Dena wrote back. I want you to. And I want to touch you too. I want you to want me.

  The conversation grew pornographic. When Georgia came across a message that began with I lick . . . , she got up from her computer for a glass of water.

  As she swilled it down, she found it curious that they’d never met. Ruth said Dena claimed Remson “disappeared” when Dena discovered he was married. But Dena had to know he was married when she checked his Facebook page.

  She went on. By November they pledged undying love for each other. But there was no mention of him being married. It appeared as if Dena as
sumed he was single.

  The last message was from Remson. Apparently two days had passed without any word from Dena. He sounded worried. Why haven’t you written? What’s going on? Are you sick? Please let me know you’re okay.

  Georgia sensed his distress. To go from the height of passion to brooding silence was a blow, even in a virtual relationship. But it wasn’t unusual. Anyone who played the online love affair game knew that a partner could disappear when they grew bored.

  Dena never responded.

  Not surprisingly, Remson’s subsequent posts turned nasty. She’d been leading him on. How dare she? What about the hotel on the strip? Didn’t that mean anything? Was her come-on just a game? Even though their entire relationship had been a fairy tale, he sounded like a genuinely jilted lover.

  Then his messages took a different turn. With still no word from Dena, Remson began to make threats. You can’t do this. And don’t tell me you didn’t know I was married. All you had to do was look at my Facebook page. It’s all there. You’re a cunt. You’ll pay for this.

  Georgia started to pace. People who created relationships—no—affairs out of whole cloth were crazy. How could they pledge undying love to someone they’d never met? And then hurl threats when the fantasy didn’t play out? Georgia was grateful to have found Jimmy. She stopped pacing and sat down again. This time she pulled up Dena’s Facebook block list. There were hundreds of names, mostly trolls, Georgia assumed. She scrolled down the list. There it was. WRemson. He didn’t “disappear” like she’d told Ruth. She’d made him disappear. The question was why. Dena clearly knew he was married. The spray of photos on his Facebook profile was proof. Unless—what if the photos were posted after Dena was killed? She quickly checked his Facebook page. No. They’d gone up several years ago.