Cruelest Month (13 page)

23

When Hannah emerged in fleece pants and a jacket
many sizes too large for her small frame, she found Ray hunched at the kitchen table, staring at the screen of his iPad.

“I like your costume,” he said, sitting up and smiling.

“Best I could find in your closet,” she responded, pulling out a chair. As if on cue, Simone appeared from the bedroom, leapt onto Hannah’s lap, and started inspecting the contents of the tabletop.

“The women are hungry,” said Hannah.

“I can see that,” said Ray.

“What’s going on?” she asked, noting Ray’s attention returning to the screen.

“The downside of technology,” he responded. “In the old days when you requested a forensic autopsy, it would take days to get the preliminary results. It went something like this: After the body arrived in Grand Rapids, a pathologist would do the post mortem during normal weekday working hours, then dictate his or her findings. The dictation would go to someone in the secretarial pool, who also worked normal business hours. He, or most likely she, would send a typed copy back to the pathologist for revision and approval. Any changes would be made on a paper copy and returned to the typing pool. The secretary would make a final copy and return it to the pathologist again for review and signature. This alone would take days. A week after this back and forth, we might get a fax with the preliminary findings, followed in another week or so by an official signed copy with photos via snail mail. Then, a week or two later, we’d get the final toxicology.”

Ray pushed the iPad across the table. “Now, it’s all here in a couple of days: the report, photos, everything but the toxicology. All neatly typed and organized by Samantha Redding, M.D., Fellow, AAFS.”

Hannah glanced at the screen. “Rule one in medicine, never read an autopsy before cappuccino.”

“I’d be happy to do that,” said Ray, putting down the iPad, “but there’s a problem. Something isn’t right. I’m not going to complain about technology again, so I’ll say it’s mostly my technique or lack thereof. The shots I make are bitter, and all I do is warm the milk up—big bubbles, no micro foam.”

Hannah set Simone on the floor. “Come here,” she ordered. “It’s time for Barista 101. We start with the grind.”

She inspected the grinder. “The first problem is that someone messed with the settings. Or maybe it just got out of kilter in the move.” She pointed to a mark she had made with a Sharpie on the adjustment scale. “This is where you want it. It took me several weeks to find the sweet spot and get this dialed in.” She poured in some beans, then pushed the “on” button until the change in sound indicated that all the beans in the hopper had been ground. Then she worked through the rest of the process, filling the portafilter and tamping the grounds. She frothed some milk and pulled the shot. Standing at Ray’s side, she offered gentle coaching as he repeated the procedure.

Settling again at the table, Hannah moved the iPad close to her. “Have you read this?”

“Just started. I was getting mired in the boilerplate.” Ray watched in silence as she carefully studied the report, occasionally moving the text backwards to review a paragraph or two. He got up and gave Simone her breakfast. A few minutes later she was at the door, demanding his attention and a walk with a sharp, command bark.

Hannah was still concentrating on the screen when they returned from their stroll around the neighborhood. Ray made her another cappuccino and then repeated the process for himself.

Finally she looked up, held him in her gaze, and asked him a second time how much of the autopsy he had read.

“Like I said, just the beginning.”

“This is all so interesting. For an old guy, Fox was in awfully good shape. He had some plaque buildup in his coronary arteries, but it wasn’t too bad for a man of his age who’d been eating the American diet forever. His muscle tone was quite remarkable.”

“So how did he die? What killed him?”

“Fox had a pacemaker. Did you know that?”

“No. His daughter never mentioned it.”

“Did you see the note on the burn marks on his neck consistent with the kind made by a stun gun?”

Ray stared at her. “Where’s that?” he said, pointing at the iPad.

“Several pages into the report.” She pushed the tablet in his direction, pointing to the section. She pulled it back, flipped through multiple pages, then slid her chair close to his and pointed at the photograph showing burn marks on the left side of Fox’s neck, below the collar line.

“What was he wearing when you saw the body?” she asked.

“His usual costume: jeans, a shirt with a sweater of some sort, and an old buckskin jacket. He had a boot on one foot, it was missing on the other.” He zoomed in on the burn marks. “I can see how the medical examiner might have missed the stun burns,” he admitted, “given the conditions where he made his preliminary observations.” Ray sat for several minutes absorbing the information. “Why would someone do that?”

“The perpetrators were trying to snatch him off the street, right?”

“That’s a likely scenario.”

“Fox was probably a tough old bird, much stronger than his assailants expected,” said Hannah. “He wasn’t going to go anywhere without a fight.”

“But who carries a stun gun?”

“You tell me. You’re the cop.”

“Well, under current law only people in law enforcement-related activities can carry Tasers. Of course, the legislature could change that in the next few months.”

Hannah was keying on the iPad. Then she was flipping screens. “There are only a few hundred sites selling Tasers and stun guns. Here’s one with Christmas specials. I can’t tell if the page is left over from last Christmas or out there for people who do their shopping early.”

“I can’t believe it,” Ray said. “I thought Fox had been grabbed by some people thinking that he really knew where the Capone treasure was, and that they could pressure him into leading them to the gold. The use of a stun gun just makes it all seem incredibly sinister.”

“What we are capable of almost defies imagination. You should spend some time in a war zone,” Hannah answered, her tone dark, tension in her voice.

Ray let her comment hang for a long time. “So what killed him?”

Hannah shrugged. “Here the pathologist equivocates a bit. Because of the absence of bruising, she doesn’t think that he was constrained for any period of time. And there’s no evidence that he was ever bound at the hands or feet. She speculates that the stun gun was used during the initial assault and wonders what effect that may have had on his pacemaker. She notes the literature on this type of weapon and its potential effects on pacemakers are extremely limited. Three citations to recent articles are appended at the end.”

Ray got up and carried his mug to the sink.

“What are you thinking?”

“You see, I’ve invented two scenarios. The first one involved a couple of our locals: somehow I’m seeing two middle-aged guys, down on their luck, not incredibly bright, who got started into this whole thing by stealing a copy of Fox’s book. They quickly figured out that they weren’t going to find the money based on the descriptions or maps, so they grabbed Fox off the street, and, based on the burns on his foot, tried to get information out of him by holding his foot against their wood-burning stove. I can see the interior of the house, the stove their only source of heat.” Ray returned to the kitchen table, pulled his chair away from Hannah’s, and sat down. “Unfortunately, Fox just up and dies on them. The guys panic, load him in their car or truck, head up the road 15 or 20 miles from the scene, and dump the body.”

Hannah nodded. “Okay, what was the other scenario?”

“Much simpler. Someone saw him make the big win at the casino and abducted him off the street hoping to get the money.”

“And the burns to the foot?”

“Same motive as the first; when he didn’t have the cash on him, they tried to use torture to find out where it was.”

“How about just modifying your scenarios. They’re just crazy, sick, and weird. They use a stun gun to aid in the kidnapping. If you search the APA list of mental disorders, you will probably come up with a multisyllabic, multiword Latinate definition for this type of behavior.”

They sat in silence for several minutes. Finally, Hannah asked, “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to make breakfast.”

“And if I weren’t here?”

“I might start by splitting wood. Then I’d go to the office and try to make something happen. I’d create diagrams and lists, look through old files, think about our usual cast of characters. There would be no breakthroughs, but somehow just being active makes me feel better. Then I’d go for a long, fast paddle until I was totally exhausted.”

“So is that what you want to do?”

“The office part, no. It’s a waste of time. It’s just me trying to cope.” He smiled at her. “And I’m glad that you’re here. What would you like to do? It’s really blowing outside. I think kayaking is out.”

Hannah spooned the last of the foam out of her cappuccino cup. “How about taking Simone for a really long walk on the beach and then going shopping.”

“Shopping? I didn’t think you…?”

“For food. You know the right places. We could get a duck or a chicken or a pot-roast, something that takes hours to cook. Vegetables or squash, and we’ll bake something. We fill the house with lovely aromas, we drink tea or maybe a little wine, and we listen to some quiet music to go with the day, things like the Goldberg Variations. I’m sure you have a good….”

“Yes.”

“Do you think we can survive a slow day together, a slow day of doing normal kinds of things?”

Ray smiled, “I’m sure that after a three hour walk on the beach I could settle into this very nicely.”

24

It was mid-afternoon, and Mackenzie
was sipping her first cup of coffee after an hour of yoga and 40 minutes of meditation. Behind her great room’s expanse of titanium-tinted glass, she peered across the bay through her powerful telescope. Heavy rain and mist were being pushed off the big lake into the bay by a strong northeast wind, but she could see the back of a figure moving on a treadmill framed in the center of a large HDTV, the jogger almost in proportion with the soccer players in the background.

Plato’s cave,
she said, making the figures larger and sharpening the focus as the scope cut through the haze. Her concentration was suddenly shattered by the vibration and techno music beat of the ringtone Ken Lee had installed on her cell phone.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Watching Sabotny on his treadmill.”

“Is he fit?”

“I’ve only been watching a few minutes, but he’s moving fast. My guess is that he’s in good shape.”

“File that away. Might be an important bit of info. Listen, I’ve been thinking about your encounter last night. We need to get some things in place. Also, I’ve got additional info on Sabotny. You may want to make notes.”

“Give me a few. Let me get to a keyboard.”

Mackenzie hit a switch on the wall, and the floor-to-ceiling drapes started to close. When the whirling noise of the electric motor stopped, the room was left in almost complete darkness. Mackenzie navigated her way to her desk and touched the space bar on her keyboard, bringing the screen to life.

“Okay,” she said, “ready to make notes.”

“First,” said Ken Lee, “we need to start tracking Sabotny. I’d like to get a GPS transmitter in his car. You said he had a Land Rover. What year?”

“I have no idea; looks new. How do you tell?”

“Get me a photo. I’ll e-mail you a diagram of where to place the unit. It’s held by strong magnets, and it just takes a few moments to get it in place. I’ll send you two in case he has a second vehicle. They should be in your box at the UPS Store by Tuesday. Also, I want you to have a personal locator beacon with you before you go on any more jaunts. I’m researching what’s out there. I should have that unit in your hands before the end of the week.”

“Ken Lee…I don’t want to be weighted down with extra gear.”

“These things are tiny, about the size of a small cell phone. And I need to know where you are. If things go south, just pull the tab, and I’ll direct law enforcement to you. Now, let’s move on to Sabotny,” he said, cutting off any further protest on the PLB. “I talked to two people—an ex-marine friend, and a foreign service officer—who were in Baghdad early on after the invasion.”

“And?”

“Sabotny was career military, a high-ranking noncom. But something happened during the run-up to the Iraq war. My friend doesn’t know what. There’s no record of a court martial, but Sabotny was separated from the Corp. It was all hush-hush.”

“Your friend, does he have a name?”

“Yes, ‘X,’” came the response. “The next time X saw Sabotny was in Baghdad right after the liberation. Sabotny was in command of a group of contractors. X said they looked like they came from central casting. Everything new and clean: clothes, weapons, and vehicles. He said they were all in black, not desert camo. Scuttlebutt was these guys were getting $1,000, $1,500 a day. That’s about what the troops at the bottom get a month. X said what really pissed him off was the contractors hadn’t done any of the fighting, but there they were collecting the big bucks escorting diplomats and civilian employees through corridors that regular troops had secured and were defending. X said he quickly learned to hate them for other reasons.”

“Like what?”

“First, he said it was their swagger and their high living, the single malt Scotch and young Eastern European whores that were smuggled in on private jets. And they were answerable to no one. And they used the anarchy of a war zone to enrich themselves. Most were ex-military: Russian, South African, Israeli, French, and American. But here’s the big thing: that first year after the invasion, $12 billion in C-notes were shipped from the U.S. to start the rebuilding effort. Most went missing. That and billions of dollars worth of oil, loaded on tankers and shipped who knows where. X says he doesn’t know what scams Sabotny was running, but he does know that Sabotny soon parted company with the original contracting group and started his own operation. X says Sabotny came into a lot of money, big money, fast, and set up a shipping business. He says he heard Sabotny laundered the profits through an offshore corporation.”

“And that’s a lot of hearsay,” observed Mackenzie.

“Yeah, well, I next called this woman who was there the first year. State Department. She’s in Thailand now, still has a 202 area code. She confirmed most of the story. Said the loss of the money and Bremer’s total incompetence was reported long after the fact and never seemed to get any traction in the press. She said she heard that in addition to the no-bid contracts and lack of oversight, some contractors and/or their employees just helped themselves to pickups filled with boxes and bags of bills. And they did it with impunity because there could never be any prosecution. There was no accounting, no tracking of serial numbers. No doubt some of the money was used to pay for legitimate expenses, but most was stolen, and there is no way to trace any of it.”

“Is this for real?”

“It is.” Lee paused briefly and Mackenzie could hear him tapping keys on his keyboard. “So I call a friend at the Bureau. This guy owes me, and I know that he was involved in an investigation of a number of things that happened that first year in Baghdad—the theft of antiquities, the missing billions, contractor fraud, you name it. I asked him about Sabotny. He says they gave him a good look, they knew he was a key player, but they didn’t have enough evidence. Then he tells me they just ended up letting it go, the whole thing. The Pentagon and the administration, right from the top, were leaning on them to cease and desist. Too many people in powerful positions had either been in on the take or were complicit with what went down. He said that it could have been a scandal that rivaled Watergate. They wanted to make sure it got buried. Sure enough, in the end, it attracted little attention.”

“Okay, interesting, but all old news,” said Mackenzie. “What’s Sabotny up to now, and why is he here?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” answered Lee. “But I have a bit more, and some of it I don’t quite understand—offshore corporations, wire transfers, that sort of thing. Sabotny is believed to have several offshore corporations in the Caribbean and Seychelles where he laundered his millions in 2003 and 2004. Since then he’s been living as an expat, mostly in Eastern Europe, seldom coming to the States. He pays for his day-to-day expenses using credit and debit cards issued by offshore banks. Both the Bureau and the IRS have noted his return and are looking into his activities. And the laws are changing for people like Sabotny. They’re not going to be able to live like this much longer. The loopholes are being closed.”

Mackenzie, lost in thought, didn’t immediately respond.

“What’s going on?” Ken Lee finally asked.

“I’m just trying to absorb all of this. I thought Sabotny would be an ordinary up-north guy.”

“Hardly. He’s a trained killer with anything he needs at his disposal. Sure you don’t want me on location?”

The offer was tempting. Mackenzie was feeling lonely and vulnerable. “This is my war,” she answered. “You’re giving me plenty of help.”

“Get me those pics,” said Lee. “And we’ll see if we can find out what he’s up to. In the mean time, I’ll send you everything I’ve gotten so far, including some info on his woman friend, Elena Rustova. Give it a good look.”