by Dick Lilly
“Drink, Mr....Jason?”
“That would be very kind. Thank you. Scotch if you have it.”
“Carl liked Macallans.” Surprised she could say this without a welling of tears. “I think there’s some left.”
“On the rocks, then.”
In control of herself getting out the bottles, glasses, ice from the dispenser on the fridge for Coffee’s Scotch – white wine for herself, definitely not gin since Falconer got her sloshed – Sally wondered if her guest could tell her what Carl was doing in L.A., why Victor flew him down there every month. Fucking Victor would never tell her, flat out refused on the phone a couple days ago, the secretive bastard. “I paid for his time according to our contract, Mrs. Barclay.” That was it. End of call.
Sally carried the drinks over to the marble coffee table set in front of the window with easy chairs on either side. “Make yourself comfortable, Jason.”
“Mrs. Barclay ... Sally. I can call you Sally?”
“Sure, that’s OK. Even though I don’t really know who you are and how you knew my husband.”
“Rest assured, I’ll get to all that. It’s why I came.”
Who was this guy? Slightly formal speech and a faint accent, impeccably dressed in gray slacks and blue blazer, Sally figured he was some kind corporate executive and maybe a foreigner. She waited for Coffee to continue.
“So, Sally, how much do you know about your husband’s business with Victor Wallingford?”
“Our business: Carl Barclay Associates.” Sally found herself irritated by the way Coffee phrased it, the implication she was just “the little woman” and there were things she didn’t know. “I knew – know – everything: details of the master contract with Wallingford Evergreen, contracts with Wallingford Evergreen subsidiaries, what we’re supposed to deliver in each case, who’s working on which parts of the accounts, the time Carl put in on Victor’s behalf – too damn much, if you ask me – how much we’re spending and every dollar we bring in. I’m not the bookkeeper but I supervise her and I sign the checks. Carl cut the deals and I kept track of the details. That was the way it worked from the day we started the company, together.” She reached for her glass, raised it, capturing for a moment before she drank the color of the sunset in the wine.
“Wallingford Evergreen was our biggest client for the last three years, our biggest years ever for revenue and net revenue. Frankly, our earnings from Victor’s companies were padding our nest egg. We planned to retire in less than two years...or at least slow down... ” Sally sobbed. “It doesn’t matter now, does it? With the investments and life insurance, I’ll have more money than I’ll ever need. That’s good, isn’t it, but kind of a cruel joke.” She laughed with a harsh rasp. “I hate it. I’ll be alone.” Her tears came, but quietly this time. After a while, she dried them with a cocktail napkin from the coffee table and took a large drink of wine.
Topping looked away, out the window toward the darkening sunset. The ice in his Macallans clinked softly as he drank. After a while, he faced Sally again.
“Sally, I don’t mean any criticism of you in what I’m going to tell you, or any criticism of Carl. I’m sure his motive was always to create a better life for you, for the two of you together. Unfortunately, that gave Victor Wallingford some power over him. I think that was the key Victor used to control Carl. They must have talked about it so Victor knew your husband would be interested in making a lot of money fast, more than he’d bill as a political strategist. Do you follow me so far?”
“No, not really. What do you mean? I know we grossed a little more than a million from all the Wallingford Evergreen companies, taken together. We billed Victor and the holding company at a much higher rate than any other clients.”
“Yes, that’s true. Victor knew that and it didn’t bother him. He and I have talked about it. There was even more money, quite a bit more, though, and it sounds as though you haven’t seen it except what you could hide in Carl’s high billable rate. Overpaying Carl was part of the deal.”
“Now I’m lost. What are you talking about, Mr. Coffee?”
“Victor used Carl...”
“Don’t I know it! The last year or so that asshole was leading him around by the nose.”
“More than that, Sally. I’m sorry. Victor used Carl to deliver dope – crystal methamphetamine – to dealers in L.A. and a Chinese syndicate in Vancouver, B.C.”
“No!” The single word became a wail, descending into sobs. “Not Carl. No, not Carl.” Coffee stood up, retrieved the wine bottle from the kitchen and poured Sally another glass. After a while, with no more tears to give, she spoke in a phlegmy whisper: “How do you know this?”
“It was delivered to people I know.”
“Carl wouldn’t...Why should I believe you?”
Comforting, wanting to make sure she felt he was on her side, Topping said, “You’re right, Sally. Carl wouldn’t. But Victor Wallingford would. I think you can believe that. And he used Carl, knew Carl wanted more money for retirement and probably convinced your husband to do it, you know, ‘just once,’ and then, well, had him hooked. That’s just me speculating, of course, but...”
“Victor’s a shit but he’s rich shit. He’s not a drug dealer. He doesn’t need the money.”
“Some people always need more. Victor lost a lot in the dot-com bust and more on biotech. That left him with an empty lab and all the equipment he needed. He manufactures meth, hundreds of pounds of meth in the last three years. Not him personally. He pays some small-time gangsters, immigrants from Eastern Europe, to mix the chemicals.”
“Fuck.” On the way to believing, it was all Sally could say.
“I should say ‘manufactured,’ past tense. Since your husband was killed, Victor has been covering his tracks. He’s planning to close the lab, get the two guys working there to sterilize the place and black bag everything for the landfill. They’re dead if Victor can’t quietly get them on a plane to Donetsk.”
“Is that why Carl was killed, to cover up for Victor Wallingford?”
“Maybe,” said Topping, meaning yes. Outside, it was dark.
“But who . . .? Oh, I see.”
Chapter 42, Match
Thursday, June 26, 2 p.m.
Not the phone this time. This was the real deal. No denials left. Falconer wanted to meet the governor away from her office, which he figured would be buzzing with curious and potentially indiscreet staffers and thoroughly wired to send every pin drop to a hard drive somewhere. He drove a couple hours over the pass to Yakima where she was attending a conference on irrigation and water rights. When she came out of the hotel, Falconer was standing by her car shooting the shit with the trooper behind the wheel. “Walk with me a bit?”
“OK. But I’m behind schedule.”
“Nothing new there.”
“You’ve got five minutes.”
“It’s enough. She’s yours.”
“What?”
“Michelle Adams of San Diego, California, is your daughter. DNA match. You’ve got a 10-year-old grandson, too, named Manuel.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Not true?”
Collins slumped onto an empty bus-stop bench, energy drained out of her. “No, it’s true. I knew this would happen someday. But please, please not in the middle of a campaign.”
“I’m not your problem, Mo. We both know somebody else is trying to get this out, cripple you with scandal. Somebody who doesn’t want you re-elected.”
“Yeah, lots of people. Sonny McCracken? My lovely fellow R’s?”
“I have no idea. But we know Michelle gets money, quite a bit, from someone in Seattle who’s hired Todd Mundy. But we still haven’t been able to find out who the client is. Maybe the father? You tell me.”
“No, not the father! He doesn’t know.” She was now in tears.
“Do you know?”
“No, not exactly. There were a couple, OK, several guys. It was the fucking 70s, for Christ’s sake.” She gave a huge sob
. “This is so pathetic.”
“Who are the possibles?”
“None of your business, Falconer. And none of them live in Seattle. I do know that.” Falconer wondered if she was lying, pretending to promiscuity to hide the identity she did know.
“Rules out Victor Wallingford, then. We found him prominently pictured in your Whitman yearbooks.”
Collins stood up, pacing in anger. “Oh, Christ! That prick. Even back then he was as smarmy as they come. We all knew he just wanted to get into your pants. I think he thought a small-town country girl like me would be swept off her feet by his family money and city slicker sophistication. He kept trying to get a date but I wouldn’t go out with him. I must have turned him down a dozen times and he finally gave up. I can say with absolute certainty he’s not the father, thank heavens.”
Regaining composure, hiding worries behind her public face, Collins turned and headed back toward her car. “When can I meet her, Michelle, and the little boy? What’s she like? Is she married?”
“Single mom, as you would have been.”
“Don’t get self-righteous on me, Falconer.”
“OK, OK. Sorry. I’ve never met her but Theresa has. Very nice, strong, self possessed, kid is polite, happy. Looks like you’ll get to meet them soon. They’re due in Seattle Tuesday night as guests of the mystery benefactor.”
“Well, a campaign surprise then.”
Chapter 43 Town Car
Monday June 30, 8 a.m.
Victor Wallingford loved his platinum Rolls Royce Phantom. Sure, it was big; it burned gas, but what the fuck? He loved driving it. He loved the stares he got: his big platinum cocoon.
So it pissed him off this morning that a black Town Car was parked blocking his driveway. Worse, when he honked nothing happened. The driver was slumped over the wheel. Drunk? Drugged? Victor got out and walked over to shake the shit out of the son-of-a-bitch, started pounding on the driver’s window with the side of his fist.
“Quiet down, Mr. Wallingford. We can work this out.”
Victor turned to yell at the dark bearded man who’d come up behind him. “Get this piece of shit . . .” The deadly black gun in the man’s hand silenced him.
“We’d like to do business with you, Mr. Wallingford. Please get in the car so we can talk privately.” With a turn of his head, he motioned Victor to the Town Car’s back door. “Get in and slide over. Fasten the seat belt.” With the gun aimed at Victor’s head, the man slid in beside him and closed the door. “Just a minute and we’ll be on our way.”
“Where the hell are you taking me?”
“Patience Victor.” Condescending. “I’m going to call you Victor now. We’re going to be business partners. Good partners, I’m sure. You can call me Edmund. Pretend it’s my real name.”
The driver got out, walked to the Rolls, still running, and rolled it down the driveway into Wallingford’s garage. Back in the Town Car, he reached over the seat. “Here are your keys, Mr. Wallingford. I’m sure you’ll need them later.”
They pulled away, driving slowly along tree-shaded streets past some of Laurelhurst’s largest houses, headed toward the university and roads to anywhere.
“Now Victor, to make you even more comfortable and make this conversation one among equals, I’m going to put my gun away.” Hanran pulled a small leather handbag from under his arm and slipped the gun inside. “Better, right?”
“What do you want?”
Hanran smiled, his lips wet. “Oh, just what I said, a partnership. You make something quite valuable and we’re interested in obtaining it – and the means of production, if you follow me.”
Wallingford followed. More than that: it dawned on him that these were the guys who’d terrified Carl. The gun was a shock too difficult to process but now his guts slackened with fear and his sweat stank. He could smell it: fear, different from the sweat on the handball court. Probably Edmund could to. Maybe he could slow things down, play dumb.
“No, I don’t. I’m not following you.” His voice put air quotes around “following you.”
“Please, Victor, we’re all adults here. There’s no need for snarkiness. I think that’s the right word, isn’t it? Let me be perfectly clear. You have a lab and make crystal methamphetamine. We want it.”
“You want to buy it?” Maybe this was, after all, going to be the kind of transaction Victor understood. “There’s none for sale; it’s all spoken for, presold to our partners.” Victor bluffed.
“I am so disappointed in you, Victor. I thought you were a smart man.”
“Maybe there’s a price that would allow us to divert some for you, or increase production.” Victor figured that was an offer that would continue negotiations.
“Victor, my man, get your head out of the clouds. This isn’t a negotiation.” Hanran’s liquid smile faded for the first time. “We’re the new company. From the ground up, as you say. We’re the new staff, the new Swiss guy, the new delivery service.”
“No, I’ve got friends. They depend on me.”
“Adrian? Of course, Adrian.” Hanran answered his own question. “We know Adrian. Adrian is expecting us to deliver – and we will.”
“You’re buying me out?’
“No, we’re taking you out. But don’t worry, Victor. Not like American gangster movies. We’re not going to kill you. You’re - what’s the right word? - a ‘big shot’ in this city.” The smile, almost a grin, returned. “You’d be missed and the police would uncover all your criminal activities. That wouldn’t be good for us – or your family – would it?”
“Fucking Adrian. The son-of-a-bitch sold me out, didn’t he?” Victor needed anger, a kind of therapy for his ego to pull himself out of the sickening fear and pit of self pity that had overwhelmed him.
Hanran didn’t answer.
“That asshole.”
The town car crossed the near North End and turned south across the Ballard Bridge. Flanking Queen Anne Hill on 15th West and Elliott Avenue, the driver turned up Harrison and into the lot behind Wallingford’s sham biotech company. Victor was surprised to see an unmarked white passenger van with tinted windows backed up to the loading dock.
“We’ll go in together,” said Hanran. Four guys got out of the van. “Your job is to dismiss the Russians – or Chechnyans, whoever they are – nicely of course. They understand these things. No hard feelings. Our van will take them wherever they need to go, get them a rental car they can drive to Vancouver, whatever.
“Then we’ll all get back in the car and take you home so you can change your stinking clothes. And while you’re taking a hot shower, think of all the pluses. You’re no longer a drug-selling felon, just an innocent man who has no idea what the tenants are doing in the basement of your building. Best of all, you’re still alive and you’ll want to think hard about how to stay that way. You know the Swiss got our two guys on the ‘death boat,’ right, but you might just wonder who killed Carl Barclay.”
Chapter 44, Kidnapped
Monday June 30, 2 p.m.
“OK, Eric, I’m sure I’ve made a mistake agreeing to see you guys on an hour’s notice but what the hell, it’s not like I have a caseload or anything. What brings you two bad pennies back this time?” Harms leaned back in his chair and put his feet on the desk. On the wall behind him were a half dozen framed certificates and awards, pictures of him with a former chief and two mayors.
Falconer led off: “Danny is pretty sure he saw Victor Wallingford kidnapped this morning.”
“I did. Two guys got him into a Town Car in front of his house. There was another man in a white van, too. I didn’t get a good look at him, though.”
Harms raised his arms to say stop. “Danny, Danny, slow down!”
“OK. Sorry.”
“You know Wallingford showed up at his office this afternoon, a few hours late is all, right?”
“Yeah, we do,” Falconer admitted, chagrinned. “We checked. And apparently SPD checked, too. What’s that all about?”
/> “We tend to know where he is . . . in general,” Harms said, deliberately sounding as vague as he could.
“‘In general?’ What’s that supposed to mean, Bobby?”
“It means we do.”
“Some of the time, anyway,” said Falconer. “Unless you’re doing what you said you weren’t doing last time we talked, surveillance on a prominent citizen.”
“No comment,” said Harms.
“See any cops around this morning, Danny?” Falconer asked.
“No. Just Wallingford and those guys.”
“And I suppose you’re always out there in Laurelhurst in the morning roller blading or skateboarding or whatever it is you do on the way from West Seattle where you live to your offices in Ballard,” Harms snapped.
Falconer thought he’d rarely seen Harms do bad cop like this. He spoke before Danny could: “So now you can crap on us for ‘risking the integrity of a police investigation.’”
Harms anger was visible. He leaned forward with his elbows on the desk, ready to lash out.
“Actually, I ride my bike,” said Danny.
Harms just laughed. “OK, you guys, let’s get to the point without bitching at each other. I apologize . . . somewhat.” He smiled, a little, showing a thin line of his famous very white teeth.
“This is the point.” From his shirt pocket Falconer unfolded a copy of the sketch made of Hanran and set it on the desk facing the lieutenant.
“That’s the guy I saw get in the car with Wallingford. He might have forced him in, I couldn’t tell. Then this guy’s driver drove Wallingford’s Rolls down the driveway, got back in the Town Car and they drove off.” Danny paused and then, grinning added, “On my skateboard I couldn’t keep up and lost them after a couple blocks.”
There was general laughter. Harms smiled, turning on the full wattage of his whitened teeth. Falconer relaxed.
“OK, we haven’t been covering Wallingford at his house every day. Staff demands, emergency responses. You know the drill. So, Danny, your identification of this Hanran guy accompanying – or kidnapping, as you said – Victor Wallingford is a real step forward, but we still don’t know what it means. I’ve got to meet with my boss before we decide what to do. You know the options: keep watching or bring Wallingford in. Maybe just try to question him in his office. He’ll have his lawyers there in any case. I don’t know what we’ll decide. So thanks.” Long pause. Harms smiled broadly. “But in the future don’t do anything that would ‘compromise an official police investigation.’ Please.”