Fatal Secrets

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Sonia was eager to head down to Stockton and talk to the key people in Jones’s security offices, but Dean turned east on Business-80 instead of south on Highway 99.

“Wait, Stockton is the other way.”

“Didn’t Gleason rub you wrong? Aren’t you suspicious?”

“Hell yes, but we still have several people who work for XCJ Security to interview.”

“It’s nearly four, and with traffic we won’t make it to Stockton until after five.”

Sonia was frustrated. She’d wanted to talk to the security staff today since Vega technically worked out of that office. But Dean was right-it would be a lot of driving for nothing. “Gleason didn’t react how I expected when I showed him the text from Trace. He said all the right things, but …”

“I caught that, too.”

“You know the one thing that really stood out? When I dropped the big bomb about human trafficking. Gleason didn’t bat an eye. No shock or outrage or surprise.”

“He knew all along.”

“Or he’s been a player all along.” Sonia glanced over at Dean with a half-smile. “So we agree that Gleason is most likely part of Jones’s illegal operation?”

“Yes.”

“He didn’t cry for his lawyer like you said.”

“I know. It’s been bugging me because he’s dirty. I feel it. But he’s also arrogant. Narcissists often balk at bringing in anyone to help them, even an attorney to protect their rights. I just assumed he was smarter than that.”

“Maybe he was feeling us out,” Sonia said, “trying to figure out what we know.”

“Perhaps. The only organization he pushed back on was Rio Diablo. I definitely want to look into them.”

“You started asking questions about Jones’s personal clients. What are your thoughts there? I thought we’d planned on focusing on Omega and the trucking company.”

“I think I figured out how Jones was laundering his money.”

“How?”

“I want to look at a couple files first to make sure I have it straight in my head.”

Sonia didn’t say anything. What’d happened to the trust Dean had preached over the last two days? That they should work together and share information? She’d never liked working with the FBI in the past, but she’d thought that this time was different. Dean Hooper was smart and focused-two attributes she appreciated-and they’d developed a rapport. But now it was just another mistrustful relationship, like all the other Fibbies she’d worked with before; suddenly, she was on a need-to-know basis.

“Sonia?”

“You don’t need me, do you?”

“Of course I do. Your knowledge about how human traffickers operate and the specific players under Jones is essential to proving-”

“But you don’t trust me with your theory?”

“It’s not that. I don’t have it all straight in my head yet.”

“Okay.”

They drove in silence. Commuter traffic was heavy and Sonia was trying not to be angry with Dean for his unwillingness to share his thoughts. But the slower the car moved, the higher her temper rose. Trust was a two-way street, wasn’t it? Hadn’t she been open with him about everything she knew? About Charlie breaking in? About what he said and how it might fit into their investigation. She was trying here, dammit, and she wished Dean would trust her-even if he ended up being wrong.

Maybe that was it. He didn’t like being wrong. He wanted to go over his files to be satisfied that he was right, then he’d share. Maybe that’s why his record was so strong, he didn’t jump to conclusions, but worked methodically to be assured that his assumptions were correct. Sonia reacted to situations immediately, relying on instinct and experience. Sometimes it ended up saving lives because she was quick on her feet. Other times she found herself having to backtrack and refocus. She couldn’t fault Dean for his diligence, just like he didn’t fault her when she jumped down his throat after he interfered with her stakeout the other night.

Five minutes-and one mile-had passed when Dean said, “You’re angry.”

“Yes, but I’m getting over it.” She glanced at him and saw a half-smile on his face. Her residual anger dissipated. Dean Hooper was too sexy to stay angry with for long, especially when he grinned.

Dean said, “Something Gleason said had me thinking. Before Gleason, XCJ Consulting was just Xavier Jones and a handful of clients, including Weber Trucking, Rio Diablo, and Omega Shipping. I know Jones’s current finances well, but I didn’t spend much time on his old finances because the statute of limitations for money laundering and racketeering is five years. I needed something current, so I only gave the older documents a cursory examination.”

She sensed he was taking a leap of faith by sharing his theory with her. He didn’t like brainstorming.

“When I saw the name Rio Diablo Rancherita on the list, and that they’d been clients of Jones since before Gleason, it set off some bells. Indian gaming is relatively new to California. There used to be a handful of casinos, now they’re breeding like rabbits. Las Vegas and Atlantic City have always been under our watch because of the opportunities for money laundering. It’s very easy to slide money into the casino and ‘clean’ it-the illegal money becomes profit for the casino owner, reportable and taxable, but still illegally obtained. They claim the cash came in through gambling losses, but in reality it came in through drugs or illegal prostitution or a host of other racketeering scams.”

Sonia asked, “But how do the criminals themselves profit? Are all casinos criminal enterprises?” She didn’t know much, if anything, about gambling.

“No, most are fairly clean, it’s better now than in the past. But there are many ways for criminals to use casinos-frankly, any businesses that have large cash flows are at risk, even if the owners are clean. There are two primary ways that the criminal element profits from casino action. When the casino owners themselves are part of the illegal activities, they wash their own money and don’t technically have to ‘pay’ anyone. They clean it, pay taxes on it as revenue, and they’re free and clear. The other way is for a criminal to go into a casino, exchange cash for chips, usually under ten thousand, gamble a little, then cash in those chips. Now the money is ‘clean.’ He’ll ask for a receipt for his ‘winnings’ and the casino has no way of tracking whether he won all the money or not. There are reporting thresholds that casinos are required by law to report, but just like running money through banks, the criminals know if they stay below the threshold they can run the scam indefinitely. And they will walk into multiple casinos with different players, washing tens of thousands of dollars all over town in a single night. We watch for the same people, have informants, and some owners are willing to work with us. Catching them is hard, but proving it is virtually impossible. That’s why it takes on average two years of intensive, full-time investigating to collect enough evidence for an arrest warrant, and ultimately, a conviction. We have to show the pattern. Two or four or six times and a good defense attorney can get the guy off. Thirty lucky days a year? A jury isn’t going to buy it. And of course we build our case with additional evidence, like known associates, lack of a stable job, living a lifestyle above reported income. It’s a labor-intensive investigation, but it never fails to satisfy me when I can build a case and take down a criminal enterprise.”

“I can see it now that you lay it out, but I never realized how easy it was.”

“It’s become harder over the years with security cameras and incentives for casino owners and staff to work with us to identify these people. But it’s also harder for us with fewer resources, and criminals are finding new and innovative ways to launder their illegal money.”

“And you think Jones found an innovative way?”

“Remember when I said that the revenue coming into his company was high for a lobbying firm?”

“Yes.”

“He claimed the money, provided client lists, and has a real, legitimate business. There’s no crime in charging high consulting fees, and while we looked hard at quid pro quo-where there was an agreement between a lawmaker and Jones to pass or not pass legislation in exchange for money-we couldn’t find even a blemish related to Jones in the capital. So I put the idea aside, figuring Jones’s clients felt he was providing a service and they were willing to pay his steep fees.

“However,” Dean continued, obviously energized by his discovery, “when I saw Rio Diablo on the list, and Gleason asked specifically why we were interested in them, but not any of the other clients, I looked at my notes and saw the connection between the small operation Jones had before Gleason and the much larger operation he has now. I suspect Jones set up the consulting firm fifteen years ago specifically to launder money.”

Sonia considered the idea. “If that’s the case, it would be a huge conspiracy. A great number of people involved. Secrets are revealed proportionately to how many people know. I don’t see how Jones could have kept something of that magnitude under wraps.”

“That’s the thing, he doesn’t need a lot of people.

Only one in each business. And if the Indian tribe is one of those entities, there’s no way in hell I would have figured it out. They investigate themselves, and trust me when I tell you they are not going to bend over backward to help us prove one of their own is laundering money through one of their casinos. That gets out to the public and public trust plummets. So do their casino profits.”

“But Jones isn’t a gambler,” Sonia said. “I’ve been following him nearly as long as you have. He doesn’t gamble.”

“That’s why I think this worked. If he was a gambler, I would have seen the gambling ‘winnings’ in his reportable income. That would have been a huge red flag. He’s the one receiving the money from human trafficking. He likely keeps a large stash of money somewhere-probably in a safe-deposit box-and perhaps he pays his people some of their salary in cash. But his profits are going to far exceed his expenses. How can he ever use that money? He needs to deposit it in a bank eventually. While he can do a lot of business in straight cash, and that’s how many criminals get away with their crimes, Jones has many expenses and property holdings that cost him capital outlay at some point. Deposits of over ten thousand dollars are reported to the IRS, as well as repeat deposits that are just under the ten-thousand-dollar threshold, at the discretion of the bank. Legitimate deposits would be payroll, consulting fees, and the like, so the IRS and FBI would be informed of a fifty-thousand-dollar wire transfer from one person or business to another, but if it’s ‘legitimate’ on the face, it’s not going to receive additional scrutiny.”

“I don’t see the connection here to Rio Diablo.”

“Cash flow into traditional casinos is hard to track, but we have years of data and experience, and tough federal regulations to make it extremely hard to launder money through casinos. But those regulations don’t apply to Indian gaming. They police their own, and their Indian council doesn’t have the experience with money laundering and criminal enterprises to know what to look for.”

“So Jones sent his employees to pretend to gamble and then collect winnings?” Sonia was confused.

“No. This is why it’s so brilliant. I think he’s giving his clients cash-and they are paying him for lobbying and political consulting-even if they don’t need it. They probably keep a percentage off the top, and the rest goes back to Jones as income into his legitimate business.

“That’s why I think he brought Gleason on six years ago. I suspect his illegal revenue had grown to the point he feared his small client list would become a red flag to the IRS. So he brought Gleason on with the charge of growing the business. Gleason and the other two lobbyists work ninety percent of the clients, but it’s the few original clients who are still responsible for the bulk of the income. At least, that’s what I think.”

Dean turned into the FBI parking lot and showed his badge to the guard, who opened the electronic gate. “That’s why,” he concluded, “I need to analyze the older records before I can state with certainty that this is how he did it.”

“But you are pretty certain.”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense. And it works every way I look at it.”

As they got out of the car Sonia said, “I never thought white-collar crime was so exciting. But you definitely have my interest piqued.”

“You know human trafficking, Sonia. Together we can figure out exactly how they’re helping him. Because they must have known about Jones’s illegal activities from the start.” Dean’s gaze hardened. “I want to take every last one of them down.”

It took Charlie all day researching, until he had a headache and could hardly see, but he had finally figured out Jones’s code.

And it didn’t help at all.

The code was so simple-a numeric code-that had he access to a government computer, it would have been broken in minutes. However, the numeric code revealed another code, this one seemingly random. The words were clear, but Charlie didn’t know what they meant. And he feared their meaning would be clear to only one person: Jones.

There were columns of dates, which Charlie focused on, but this journal only went back six months, if Charlie had decoded it right. And Ashley Fox was kidnapped nearly a year ago.

He could hardly believe all of his work-the crimes he’d committed, the crimes he had to allow lest he reveal his identity-were for nothing. He needed the older journals, and he had no idea where Jones kept them.

Charlie was certain they weren’t at Jones’s house or in any of the outbuildings. Jones wouldn’t have left them in either his consulting or security office because Jones trusted no one. He’d had a fear of being blackmailed, so Jones had held everything close to the vest.

But even if Charlie found the older journal, he still wouldn’t know what the damn words meant! Odd words and phrases like lipid and fresh news and rose and coffee time. The words meant something-the transportation method, how many people were brought in, expenses, and income. Lacking access to a high-end computer-decoding program, it would take him much longer than decoding the numbers.

All this work and he was no closer to finding Ashley.

Her mother’s voice rang in his ear.

“All I want, Mr. Cammarata, is to know. I want her back home, but if she’s dead I want to know that, too. This not knowing what happened to her-the not knowing is killing me. I’m in limbo. One morning I’m sure she’s gone, the next morning I’m positive she’s still out there, crying for me. Help me find her, dead or alive. I have to know.”

Charlie didn’t yet have an answer for Ashley’s mother. It was killing him. How could he go back and tell her he didn’t know what happened to her daughter?

There was nowhere he could turn. Ten years ago he had burned every bridge and betrayed the one person he’d never wanted to hurt. But Charlie couldn’t let this one go. He had to find Ashley. But looking at this code-it made no sense. Jones had put together a fail-safe against law enforcement and his illegal business associates.

Damn you to hell, you bastard.

Charlie should have found a way to torture the information out of Jones. Now he was dead and the bizarre code dead with him.

Even with a code-breaking program and a top-notch analyst, the chance information about Ashley Fox would be in the journal that began in January of this year, while Ashley was abducted a year ago last April, was slim.

But for certain the key information about the China dolls being sold in the foothills to the unknown buyer was here. Charlie would give Sonia the journal-on the condition that she promise to find Ashley Fox.