Silent Justice (54 page)

Mark had to know. It had been too hard to get to the thing without being caught while the trial was still going and their security measures were all in place. Too risky. But now that he had a copy …

Now that he had a copy, he’d read the whole thing, cover to cover. Twice.

And what he read made him sick. Made him want to vomit. Made him want to drop a bomb on top of Blaylock and Colby and his stinking law firm and send them all to oblivion.

But what could he do? If he leaked the report, it would be the end of his career. Undoubtedly. Even if he did it secretly, it would eventually be traced back to him. He’d lose his job. Probably lose his license. After all, he would be betraying a client trust. Never mind that the client didn’t deserve his trust and the report hadn’t been properly subject to privilege in the first place. He could be disbarred for this.

All his dreams, all his promise. Up in smoke. No dining at the Tulsa Club. No hobnobbing with society debs. No majestic estate near Philbrook. Everything he had wanted, everything he had dreamt about—gone.

He couldn’t do that to himself. Could he?

He remembered what the other lawyer, Kincaid, had said that day in chambers when Colby taunted him, telling Kincaid he was going to bankrupt himself for nothing. Kincaid had said, “I’d rather go broke doing the right thing than get rich doing the wrong.”

You had to admire a guy like that.

Slowly, Mark reached for the Yellow Pages and started looking up courier services. He was probably making a tremendous mistake.

But he was feeling good about it. The best he’d felt in a long time.

M
IKE STARED AT FRED
, trying to make sense out of his story. “I’ve talked to the attorneys at Blaylock, and they told me they recovered almost every dime of the sixty million he stole. I saw the entries on the corporate ledger where the money reentered the books. And you’re telling me Montague still had the money?”

“Not the money. His money.” Fred stepped away from the window and closed the drapes. “You see, he had the stolen funds for more than a year. Money makes money. Over that amount of time, even a fool like me ought to be able to increase the wad.”

“I was told the loot was found in a noninterest-bearing account.”

“It was found there, yes. But had it been there the whole time? No.” An admiring smile crossed Fred’s face. “Tony got wind of the Blaylock boys before they caught him. He knew he couldn’t evade them forever, now that they knew he was alive. So he took sixty million dollars out of his investment account and put it in a noninterest-bearing savings account for them to find. He bribed a bank official to alter the computer records, make it look like the money had been sitting there for much longer than it had. Then he secretly withdrew all the profit he’d made.”

“Was it a lot?”

“Are you kidding? Think about it. Sixty million invested for more than a year? Even with conservative investments, you’d expect an eight or ten percent return. And Tony was an accountant; he knew better than most how to make his money make money. He placed big chunks of change into some of those hot Internet IPOs. By the time Blaylock found him—he’d made almost fifteen million bucks.”

Mike’s lips parted. “What did he do with it?”

“He converted it to government bonds—not the U.S. government, either. He knew that these days, in the computer age, if he put the money in a bank anywhere, it could eventually be tracked down. But he didn’t want to carry all that cash around with him.”

“So he converted it to bonds.”

“Exactly. He thought it was safer.”

“But I assume the bonds were negotiable. Anyone could spend them. So it wasn’t any safer—”

“Anyone could spend them—eventually. You see, these bonds had fixed terms. Five-year terms. At the end of the term, they could be cashed in for full value plus a sizable bonus—almost four million additional dollars. But until the term ended, they weren’t worth a dime.” He laughed. “Muggers don’t usually have that kind of patience.”

“But you and your little fishing friends did?”

Fred held up his hands. “He gave them to us! Really! We didn’t steal them.”

“Why would he—”

“He knew he was dying. For all he’d been through, he’d never gotten any pleasure out of the millions he stole. He wanted someone to enjoy the fruits of his labors. So he told us where he’d hidden the bonds.” Fred lowered his head. “And then he died.”

“I don’t recall hearing that there were any fisherpersons hanging about the cabin when his body was discovered.”

“No. We lit out of here in a heartbeat—with the merchandise. What was wrong with that? Tony was dead. We couldn’t help him. And if we were found on the scene, the Blaylock boys would undoubtedly have a lot of questions for us. Especially if we suddenly came into a lot of money. And if they found out about the money, they’d try to take it. So we blew town.”

“What did you do with the bonds?”

“Stuck them in a safe-deposit box in Mexico City. Nothing sleazy—a reputable bank. But one that didn’t ask too many questions—like where’d it come from. And one that didn’t check ID.”

“You took the box out under an assumed name?”

“We did. It seemed safer.”

“Who got the keys to the box?”

“We all did. But we left strict instructions that the box could not be opened except in the presence of all of us. That way we could rest assured that the bonds would stay in the box until they could be cashed in.”

Mike took a seat at the thin, wobbly, linoleum-topped table that had probably served as a surface for cleaning fish more often than as a dining table. This was a lot to take in all at once, but he thought he was beginning to get a clearer picture of what had happened—and why. It was a tall tale—but it made a crazy kind of sense.

“Sounds like you thought it all out carefully. Planned well.”

“Yup. Sounds like it, doesn’t it? But the best-laid plans …” He shook his head. “About six months ago, we all got together to recover the bonds. The term wasn’t quite up yet, but Canino thought it might take a while to negotiate them, since they were foreign and all. Lots of procedural hurdles. Papers to be filed. So we all went out to get them. Last December fifteenth.”

Mike thought back. “That was just before your buddy James shot up the law school.”

“You’re quick, aren’t you?”

“I gather the timing isn’t a coincidence.”

“No. Jim was nuts—totally bonkers. But there was definitely a trigger. Something that set him off.”

“Which was?”

Fred drew in his breath. “We all got together and took a little trip down to Mexico. We all went to the bank and opened the box.”

“And?”

“And the bonds were gone. All of them. The Blaylock bonanza had disappeared—again.”

When Ben didn’t answer his apartment door after she’d been pounding on it for more than a minute, Christina had to assume he wanted to be left alone. Unfortunately for him, she had her own key.

She let herself in and marched straight back to his bedroom, where he was sitting up in his pajamas staring at the same page of a Trollope novel he’d been at when she’d dropped by two days ago.

“Excuse me?” Ben said, pulling the covers around him. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, since you haven’t been to the office, I had to come to you.”

“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to take some time off when you’ve been in trial for months.”

“Wah, wah, wah.” She glanced down at his book. “Must be a real page-turner.” She grabbed it away from him and dropped it on the floor.

“Hey! I was reading that.”

She dropped a thin, blue folder in his lap. “Read this instead.”

Ben picked it up and fanned the pages. It was only about ten pages long. It appeared to be some kind of report. “Where did this come from?”

“I don’t know. A courier brought it to our office this morning. From an anonymous sender who paid in cash.”

Ben glanced at the first page. The author’s name wasn’t given, but the distribution list showed who got it—all the top Blaylock brass, including Myron Blaylock himself. And at the bottom of the list—Charlton Colby.

“Why haven’t we seen this before?” he asked.

“I think the last name on the list is the answer to that question. Colby withheld it under a claim of attorney-client privilege.”

“Because his name is on it? He didn’t write it, and it wasn’t written for him.”

“I didn’t say it was a good claim. I’m just trying to explain why we haven’t seen it before.”

“There’s no way they can—”

Christina covered his mouth with her hand. “Ben, just be quiet for a moment and read.”

Ben did as she bid. He wasn’t halfway through the first page before he understood the enormous significance of the report—why Blaylock had wanted it hidden, why Christina had brought it to his immediate attention.

When he hit the bottom of the second page, though, he gasped. Literally gasped. “I can’t believe it,” he said breathlessly. “I mean, I always thought they were responsible for the deaths. But I never in my wildest dreams—”

“Yeah.” Christina nodded appreciatively. “I thought the same thing.”

Ben climbed out of bed. For the first time since the jury had returned, he felt his heart beating again. “I’m going over to see Colby.”

“I already tried to get you an appointment. He refused. So I made you an appointment with Myron Blaylock. He didn’t want to see you, either, but after I read a few choice bits from the report, he changed his mind.” She smiled. “I have a hunch Colby will want to be there for this meeting, too, don’t you?”

“No doubt.” Ben pulled his least-wrinkled shirt out of the closet. “Good work, Christina. Would you excuse me?”

She looked at him blank-faced. “Why?”

He held up his clothes. “I need to get dressed.”

“And?”

“And—you’re in my bedroom!”

“Oh, that’s all right. We’re professionals.”

“Christina!”

“Fine. I’ll wait outside.”

“Thank you so very much.”

She stopped halfway out the door. “Did I tell you how cute your pj’s are? I’ve never seen the ones with candy canes and little teddy bears before.”

“Christina!”

“I’m going, I’m going.”

M
IKE DIDN’t KNOW HOW
long he’d been sitting in this fishing cabin listening to Fred tell his story. Time seemed irrelevant now. This bizarre tale of greed and deception was positively addicting.

“Someone had stolen the bonds?”

“So it seemed. As you can imagine, our friendship deteriorated somewhat in the aftermath. Accusations were made. Names were called. Canino and James got into a fistfight. James was really over the edge. He’d never been the most stable person—mentally, I mean. And to make matters worse, he was drinking too much, he’d just lost his job, and his wife had left him. He was counting on this money to put his life back in order. And it was gone.”

“That’s why he went ballistic at the law school, isn’t it?”

Fred nodded. “By that time, he was totally psychotic. Crazed. Didn’t even realize that Canino wasn’t teaching the class, at least not at first. All he knew was that he wanted the merchandise. That was the codeword we had developed for the bonds during the years we waited for the term to run. We had all kinds of cloak-and-dagger nonsense we invented, just so we could talk about it without talking about it.”

“Why did James think The Tiger had the money?”

“I don’t know. Shortly after we found the bonds, Canino left Blaylock Legal and started teaching. Developed quite a rep for himself. I think maybe James resented that; it only reminded him of his own failures. And in his addled, booze-soaked brain—”

“He decided to go after The Tiger.”

“Yeah. Except The Tiger wasn’t there that day. He got some other schmuck instead.”

“That schmuck is my friend. And he almost got himself killed.”

“I don’t know why Canino wasn’t there. I haven’t seen him since that day.”

“I have,” Mike said somberly. “He’s dead.”

Fred nodded. “I figured as much. Hell, they’re all dead, now. All but me. And him.”

Mike peered at Fred with a sharp and steady eye. “You stole those bonds, didn’t you, Fred?”

He didn’t deny it. “Bribed a bank official, just as Tony had years before. Easy to bribe people when you’re about to become a multimillionaire. Cleaned me out, though. Left me with no way to run. No means of—escape.” He threw his head down. “Damn that accursed money, anyway. I wish I’d never taken it.”

“Most people would be tempted.”

“I was a fool. What the hell good is it? All that money ever did for Tony Montague was ruin his life and get him killed. And now the same thing’s going to happen to me.”

“Fred, when do the bonds come due? When can they be cashed in?”

Fred did not smile. “Tomorrow. If I live that long.”

The moment Ben and Christina hit the front door of Blaylock headquarters in Blackwood, they were met by two burly security officers who detained them and forcibly confiscated Ben’s briefcase—including the blue report inside.

Ben wasn’t especially surprised.

The security officers were gruff and threatening and went through most of the permutations of a good cop/bad cop routine. They frisked them, barked into their walkie-talkies, played with their weapons, talked about calling the police. Ben and Christina sat through it quietly. When the show was finally over, the guards escorted them up the elevator to Myron Blaylock’s private office.

Colby was waiting inside. “Kincaid, I always thought you were a lousy lawyer, but I never thought you were a criminal. Until now. Rest assured we plan to prosecute you to the full extent of the law.” Ben yawned. “I haven’t committed a crime.”

“You have stolen a confidential document from these offices.”

“No. It was delivered to me.”

“Then you are in receipt of stolen property. Also a crime.”

“It’s just paper. It has no intrinsic value.”

“It contains confidential trade secrets of incalculable value.”

“Bull. It contains dirty little secrets that you want kept under wraps.” Colby stiffened. “I warn you, Kincaid. If you try to exonerate yourself from your crime by making libelous accusations about me or this company, the law will come down on you hard.”