The Case of the Yellow Diamond (16 page)

 

Chapter 30

T
he purpose of this inquiry is to determine whether there is sufficient cause to hold defendant over for trial,” the judge said. “I would remind everyone to avoid wasting the court's time with rambling and irrelevant commentary. Let's, in the vernacular of the times, cut to the chase.”

The judge sat back and rapped his gavel. I didn't know what the case was, nor did I care. I had tracked Investigator Ricardo Simon to this courtroom to suggest we meet for lunch as soon as he was released.

I slid out of the pew and out the door to pace restlessly in the corridor. It wasn't that I was under any real time or other pressure. I just wanted to get on with things. In due course, the attorneys, prosecutorial and defender “cut to the judge's chase” and the doors opened to expel the people from the courtroom, my detective friend among them.

“Let's go over to the French Café,” Ricardo said as he took my arm. “I'm in the mood for some French onion soup.”

He was always in the mood for their onion soup. “How's tricks?” he said once we were seated at a small table in the corner.

“Tricks are sort of normal. My trick today has to do with the death of that attorney, Gareth Anderson and his wife.”

“Oh, yeah, I heard something about that just this morning. There's some jurisdictional dustup. It's not my case.”

Our soup arrived and he dug through the thick cheese covering, letting a burst of fragrant steam emerge. “That's what I want to ask about. I was interviewed by the state guys yesterday, but it seemed to be a pretty light-fingered approach, when I thought about it.”

“It happened in Ramsey County, you know, so we're not involved.”

“I know it did. I was there when it happened.”

Ricardo raised his eyebrows and took a slurp of hot soup. “I didn't know that.”

Since it appeared I was privy to more current intel than he was, I explained that Anderson and his wife had been murdered by means of an explosive device planted somewhere on his car.

Ricardo squinted at me through the steam from his soup. “An explosive device in a vehicle suggests planning. Interesting. Was this lawyer a fed? I don't know him.”

“He was a corporate lawyer, partner in a firm with ties to the people I'm working for on the Yap Island thing.”

“The yellow diamond hustle,” Ricardo said.

I nodded. “He was the attorney for Preston Pederson's company and he was involved in the Yap business because, without telling his partners, he tried very hard to get me to back off from helping Tod and Josie. Remember I mentioned that when I first got involved?”

“Sure.”

“Okay. When he and I met, it was for lunch in a small downtown restaurant. The contact numbers he gave me did not include his office number. I have since learned that our meeting was not on his office calendar and his partner in the firm is not aware of that meeting. So my question is, was Anderson working off the law firm's books or was something else going on?”

“These aren't questions you expect me to answer, right?” Ricardo said, chewing now on a chunk of the cafe's tasty French bread.

“No, of course not. This is just context. So in that context, why was Anderson's car blown up? Where were he and his wife going? He lives out Minnetonka way. And my real question to you, given the circumstances of Anderson's death, is this: will there be a federal investigation? Are we possibly talking about a terrorist operation here?”

“Gotcha. Here's what I think, based on a couple of cases I know about and what little scuttlebutt I've heard. The state guys will routinely talk to the FBI and maybe the local CIA folks. Feds will probably determine it isn't a plot of international dimensions, unless they have something on Anderson or his associations. Then the state and Ramsey County or Saint Paul PD will treat it like any other homegrown murder, except for the explosive dimension, which puts it into a rarer category. They'll sort out jurisdictional stuff, maybe do a cooperative investigation. It'll all take time, and if it was my case, I'd hope the media attention would die down until there was some progress on the case. Like an arrest.”

“All right, that's what I wanted to know. Thanks.”

After lunch I called Mrs. Pryor to update her again. She made the appropriate appreciative noises, and I started staring at the wall. Pederson's funeral was the next day, and I hadn't decided whether I'd attend. Law enforcement logic and experience said perpetrators of heinous crimes often attended the funerals of their victims, but my sense in this case was that the murder was a professional job and, therefore, the shooter would be long gone and not interested in who showed up to mourn Pederson's passing.

The door to the Revulons' suite was closed and I saw no lights behind the rippled glass window, so I called instead of sauntering down the hall. Belinda picked up after three rings.

“I know I'm pressing,” I said, “but I just wondered if you have anything for me.”

“We're nowhere near done, Sean, but I can tell you there is an interesting thread that connects crime, construction, Chicago, Omaha, and Des Moines.”

“Wow,” I said.

“Yes, I thought so, too. We think we can show you a pattern of unindicted corruption in the construction projects these people were actively engaged in. There are political ramifications, of course.”

“Do you have any idea when it started?” A little bell was chiming faintly in the back of my brain.

“Roughly seventy years ago is our educated guess. That's around the time two construction firms, one in Des Moines the other in Omaha, got started. That's also around the time a Pederson appears on the board of directors of the Omaha firm.”

“That wouldn't happen to be Preston's father, would it?”

“You get the prize. There's more to do so hang up now, Sean.”

I did. The sound of the little bell had become a loud clangor.

 

Chapter 31

I
was ready to draw a preliminary diagram of the case. It was something I started doing a few months ago on earlier cases. A diagram of connections between the preliminary suspects in the case sometimes suggested unanswered questions or questionable connections. Now, with the help of the Revulon cousins, I could see I needed to devote some attention to the Hillier-Anderson-Iowa-Nebraska axis. I hoped I wouldn't have to go there. I didn't like being out of town. I never took out-of-town cases. Well, almost never. Just like I didn't do divorce or tangle with the mob or international thugs. Ever. Well, almost ever.

But I had to figure out exactly how two Des Moines and Omaha construction companies actually got involved with the Twin Cities, so I had to do some research. I didn't have any serious contacts in the trades nor in the construction business so I thought about the possibility of documents, law enforcement contacts, or maybe friends who might know anybody or have any cases that involved the kind of malfeasance I was working with here. Then I had an idea. I called my friend Hector Eduardo Martine. Martine was a former construction boss with one of the largest developers and construction companies in Minnesota. Naturally, he wasn't in. I left a message and went back to my diagram.

My diagram expanded over several sheets of paper and I figured out, after inserting a few dates from my notes of earlier interviews, that the Pederson construction company had its genesis between 1945 and 1950. That would've been about the time Josie's father returned from military service. I needed to find out if he had been in the Pacific Theater. It might also help to know what branch of the service he was in. I decided I could do a little Internet research on my own. It took a while but I found a site that could give me some information about military units and their assigned service activity, if not about individuals.

My notes from interviews early on with Josie and Tod gave me his branch of the service and his unit assignment. There was some vague recollection in my fevered brain that he'd served in the Seabees and had been mustered out sometime in 1946. My recollection was correct and with those bits of information I did a few productive searches on the aforesaid Internet. I discovered his unit had indeed been in the South Pacific and, furthermore, he would have been released from active duty early in 1946.

The strands of the web were growing thicker and more securely attached. While I stared at my papers, I could begin to see a conspiracy that began with the discovery of precious stone smuggling to the U.S. from the Pacific Theater, the creation of a pool of cash used to establish a construction company in each of the cities to the south of me, and the periodic need for more cash. How to get that?

Ah,
my imagination suggested,
suppose there existed somewhere a stash, not of cash, but of gemstones? And suppose during early struggles of the construction companies, when an occasional infusion of money was required to stay afloat, two trusted employees are dispatched to the stash. They discreetly convert the gems to cash, which could then carefully be inserted into the businesses?
That could explain certain undocumented absences by Messers Anderson and Hillier. Who better than a trusted though corrupt lawyer and his bosom school buddy as a guard to carry out such a task? I assumed the two had probably moved the jewels to Europe—Antwerp, perhaps, because I had read somewhere that there was a lot of diamond business in Antwerp. There's a lot of diamond traffic in New York City, too, but Antwerp was farther away.

And who better to help load up the supply chain with additional rocks than an officer of easy morals named Captain Richard Amundson, who just happened to be related to the founder of Pederson Construction? Once Tod and Josie began to do the research to find their long-lost granduncle, some people got nervous and decided to erase some links in the chain. Links named Stan Lewis, and Gareth Anderson and Preston Pederson. Never mind the collateral damage. Reluctantly, I decided I had to go to Des Moines. With luck, I wouldn't have to extend my travel to Omaha.

* * * *

I didn't have any current contacts in Des Moines. There was no one I could call to do needed legwork and an interview or two. So in spite of my aversion to highway driving, and no backup other than my trusty .45-caliber in the special harness under the dashboard, I made the four-hour drive to the capital of that grand state, Iowa. No jokes.

I booked a room at Mr. Carlson's Country Estates. Sounded impressive, but it was just a nice motel, located a couple blocks off Highway 35 in West Des Moines I wanted to eyeball the situation firsthand. Mr. Carlson's hotel was actually in Clive, a suburb of the city, just a mile or so from the location of the construction company offices that was my target. I was well-positioned to move on to Omaha, should that be necessary.

I had dinner, checked in with Catherine, and had a restful night. I ate breakfast in the morning and sortied off to Pellegrino Development and Construction. I had no expectation of finding anyone in the office who could help me. Indeed, when I'd called the morning before I drove down, the man on the telephone, with the vocal mannerisms of a relatively undereducated fellow, suggested I call the home office in Chicago. He further intimated I wouldn't be especially welcomed at the construction office.

He was right.

When I walked through the door marked Pellegrino Construction, I entered a bright, cheerfully painted office of yellows and whites, a desk with the usual office equipment, and a pleasant looking young lady who smiled up at me and said, “Good morning. You must be Mr. Sean?”

Now, I had no particular basis on which to judge whether the woman seated there was a lady or not. Nor had I any particular basis for her instant identification of myself. That was mildly concerning. I raised an eyebrow and said, “And good morning to you. How is it you're able to so readily identify me?”

“You look a lot like your picture?”

Her smile disappeared, and she flipped over a sheet of paper which turned out to be a picture of me attached to my name and essential facts. I recognized the picture as one that must have been taken during one of my visits to the White Bear Lake home of Josie and Tod Bartelme.

“I wonder if Mr. Anderson is available? I would have called to make an appointment, but my time is short, and I just have one or two questions.” I figured this Anderson might or might not be related to the deceased lawyer, Gareth.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Anderson is on a construction site downtown? I don't expect him until late this afternoon—if at all today?”

“I see. Then how about Mr. Hillier?”

The woman frowned. “I don't believe I recognize that name. Mr. Hillier?” She slid open her lap drawer and ran a well-manicured finger down a list of names in a small three-ring binder.

“I don't think that person is employed here, Mr. Sean?”

She was being so polite and deliberate, my teeth were starting to hurt. A good job of pretend cooperation. I wondered if she'd practiced saying my name out loud. Her habit of making almost every sentence a question was also getting on my nerves.

“Might I ask, is your Mr. Anderson related to the Anderson in Minneapolis? The one recently murdered?”

She blinked twice and said, “Oh . . . well . . . I really don't know. Murdered, you say? Oh, dear.”

A few more minutes while she parried my probing questions with negative responses. Seeing no hope of a negotiated breakthrough, I thanked the woman and left the office.

In the car I contemplated my dusty red tennis shoes for a few minutes. Then I went back into the company office, moving as rapidly as possible without actually running. As I cracked the inner vestibule door, I could hear the woman on the telephone.

“Yes, sir. He was just here and I told him you were on a site in town.”

A pause while she listened. I listened, too.

“No, sir, I said exactly what you wanted me to tell him. Oh, and he asked if you are related to an Anderson recently killed in Minneapolis?” There was a response and then she hung up the phone. I pushed the door wide and grinned at her consternation.

“Thanks for your help,” I said and wheeled around and trotted out of the office. I leaped into my trusty Ford and wasted no time roaring out toward downtown Des Moines.

I reached the Pellegrino construction site. It was relatively easy to find, since my list of Pellegrino jobs had only a single Des Moines address. A large sign announced a high-rise retirement home under construction. I circled the block until I spied the wide gate in the wire fence that wound completely around the block. Parking inconspicuously down the street, I waited. In about five minutes, a dusty, black Lexus SUV with illegally tinted windows rolled out of the gate and turned east. I took a picture of the rear license plate as the vehicle disappeared down the street and then slid down in my seat to wait, propping my red Keds on the passenger seat.

Several hours and a bad taco takeout later, the site began to shut down for the night. I slid out of my vehicle and stretched. Two construction workers ambled by me heading for a local bar, if their conversation was to be believed. I saw no reason not to believe them. So I ambled along about half a block behind until I saw them enter a corner bar. I'd give them time to slake their thirst before making an approach.

I went into the bar, identified the two men and slid into an empty booth across the room.