Found money

33

They were out of lettuce. For nine straight days, Sarah’s late-morning snack had consisted of the same unique sandwich delicacy. Peanut butter, sliced bananas, mayonnaise, and iceberg lettuce on rye bread, grilled on both sides until the mayo was bubbling and the lettuce went soft. Dee-licious. But it just wasn’t the same without the lettuce.

She slumped with despair as she stood staring into the open refrigerator. She made one more attempt to bend her pregnant body and check the bottom vegetable bin. Definitely no lettuce. Her hormones took over. She was suddenly on the verge of tears.

The phone rang. She paused, unsure whether it was worth the effort to answer. The wall phone was all the way on the other side of the kitchen. Her swollen ankles were worse today than yesterday, and the cold air from the open refrigerator was feeling mighty good.

It kept ringing. Seven, eight times. Somebody really wanted to talk to her. She stepped away from the fridge and slowly crossed the room, grimacing with each step. She answered in a clipped tone. “Yeah.”

“Sarah, it’s Liz. Where is Brent?”

“Not here.”

“I didn’t think so. Where is he?”

Sarah checked the clock on the oven. “Probably halfway back from Denver by now.”

Liz hesitated. “I appreciate your candor.”

“Excuse me?”

“I didn’t expect you to actually admit he came here.”

“Liz, what are you talking about? He went to Denver to see you.”

“Me?”

“He left early this morning. Real early. Like two A.M. Said he wanted to catch you before you went to work. He couldn’t sleep. Was up thinking about that deposition your lawyer wanted him to give. He needed to talk to you about it.”

“I never saw him.”

“That’s funny. Then I don’t know where he is.”

“Neither do I. But I have a pretty good idea of where he’s been. Somebody beat the daylights out of my lawyer this morning. Jumped him right in his garage on his way to the office.”

“Oh, my word. Is he hurt bad?”

“Bad enough to land in the hospital.”

“Gosh, Liz. That’s terrible. I’m sorry.”

“Are you?”

She stiffened at the accusatory tone. “Wait a second. You don’t think Brent — what are you thinking?”

“Just look at what happened. Yesterday, Brent was served with a subpoena. It made him so mad he couldn’t sleep. He jumped in his car in the middle of the night and drove to Denver, supposedly to talk to me. Next thing we know my lawyer’s in the emergency room getting his face stitched up.”

Sarah’s hand shook nervously. “Just slow down. I know this looks bad. But let’s not jump to conclusions.”

“This is hardly a jump. Brent’s in trouble this time, Sarah. Big time. All I can say for you is that I hope you had nothing to do with it.”

She was about to respond, but the line clicked. Her hands shook harder. She gripped the phone, paralyzed with confusion. The dial tone hummed in her ear. Liz was gone. Brent was unaccounted for.

And Sarah felt completely alone.

Ryan insisted on a thoroughly private line for his call to his lawyer. Agent Forsyth offered the use of an embassy phone, but somehow that sounded about as private as dialing into a talk radio station. The only viable option was a pay phone on the street. Forsyth wasn’t happy about it, but he didn’t seem prepared to arrest him to prevent him from walking out of the building. The Panamanian police were no longer a threat, since their only apparent objective had been to assist the FBI in bringing him to the embassy. Ryan found a public phone right on Avenida Balboa. Cars and buses rumbled by on the busy street. He closed one ear with his finger as he dialed Norm’s private line.

“Where are you?” his lawyer asked.

“About a block from the embassy. I’m at a pay phone, but they’re expecting me back inside when I finish talking to you. I’ve been sort of detained for questioning by the FBI.”

“What?” He sounded as if he was coming through the phone.

“You heard me.” Ryan gave him the two-minute summary, filling in the gaps since their talk last night.

“First off,” said Norm, “I suppose it tells us something that you ran into the FBI instead of the DEA. The FBI does do drug work, but if the government thought the three million dollars at Banco del Istmo was drug money, I would think DEA would have detained you rather than the FBI.”

“Does that mean they know the money is from extortion payments?”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but I will say this. It’s puzzling that the FBI went to all the trouble of coordinating with the local police to question you in Panama. It would have been much easier just to wait for you to return to the United States.”

“Except that last night I booked a flight to the Cayman Islands so I could check on that offshore corporation that transferred the money to my father’s account. Maybe the FBI wasn’t so sure I was coming back to the states.”

“That’s possible. But the FBI doesn’t have unlimited resources to chase people around the globe. If these agents were based in Panama, that’s one thing. But if they flew down from the States just to talk to you, this thing may be bigger than your father even knew.”

Pedestrians hurried past on the sidewalk. In a moment of paranoia, Ryan wondered if any were FBI. “Let’s take this one step at a time. What do I do right now?”

“Step one is to get your new passport. It should be ready and waiting for you right there at the embassy, and they can’t withhold it.”

“Then what?”

“Legally, you have no obligation to talk to anyone. The FBI has no right to detain you. But we have to be concerned about appearances. After you leave, the FBI agent will fill out a Three-oh-two report that makes a record of your conversation. We don’t want that Three-oh-two to state simply that on the advice of your attorney, you refused to talk to the FBI. That sounds like you’re hiding something. We want you to sound as cooperative as possible, short of talking to them. So here’s what you do. You go back to the embassy and tell the agent that you fully intend to cooperate. But now isn’t a good time to talk. Your bag was stolen along with your passport. You’re upset and you’re tired. Ask them for their business cards. That’s important. I need to know which field office these agents are from. Tell them your lawyer will contact them about an interview in Denver after you’ve returned to the States.”

“So you want me to come straight back to Denver? No stop in the Cayman Islands?”

“Do not go to the Cayman Islands. I’ll have my investigator check out that lead discreetly. Everything you do from here on out, you have to assume the FBI is watching.”

“This is getting so nuts.”

Norm sensed his frustration. “Ryan, take it easy. You’ve done nothing wrong. If a crime has been committed, it was your father. The FBI can’t send you to jail for something your father may have done.”

“The FBI may be the least of my problems. Obviously someone has been tailing me all over Panama, maybe even followed me from Denver. And I still can’t figure out why the same woman who scammed me out of my bag at the hotel bar would then warn me that the police were coming to my room to pick me up.”

“Are you sure it was the same woman?”

“Sounded just like her. If it wasn’t, that’s even more baffling. It is strange, though. Why would someone who essentially robbed me suddenly decide she’s on my side?”

“Maybe she’s not exactly on your side. Just that in certain respects your interests coincide.”

“What do you mean?”

“The essence of blackmail is the secret. Neither side wants the secret to get out. If it does, the blackmailer loses his cash cow, and the person paying the blackmail has to suffer the consequences of the world knowing the truth about him.”

“You think she’s protecting the person who was blackmailed?”

“I think she knows who paid the money. And I think it’s her job to make sure nobody finds out.”

Ryan swallowed hard. “Then why doesn’t she just kill me?”

“Probably for the same reason she didn’t just kill your father. He must have worked out some arrangement where the secret would be revealed if anything untoward happened to him or his family. It’s a fairly common safety valve in any extortion case.”

“How would it work?”

“Hypothetically, let’s say your father had photographs of a famous TV evangelist having sex with his German shepherd. This is not the kind of thing that advances an evangelist’s career. Your father blackmails the evangelist, but he’s afraid the bad guys might kill him rather than pay him five million dollars. So he sends copies of the photographs to some third party, along with explicit instructions. If Frank Duffy dies under suspicious circumstances, the photographs are to be sent immediately to the National Enquirer. That way, killing the blackmailer accomplishes nothing. The only option is to pay the money.”

“So in my situation, this third party would be… who? My mother?”

“Not likely a family member. Maybe a friend. Maybe someone with no apparent connection to your father at all.”

Ryan fell silent, pensive. Maybe somebody like Amy. Maybe that was why she had balked at his hints to move their relationship beyond business.

“You still there?” asked Norm.

“Yeah, I’m here. I was just thinking. This third party you mentioned. They probably wouldn’t work for free, right?”

“It would be typical to give them a cut of the extortion money.”

“Say two hundred thousand dollars?”

“I guess. Whatever they negotiate. What are you driving at?”

“Maybe it’s best I’m not going to the Cayman Islands after all. There’s something I need to check out back in Denver.”

Norm stiffened, concerned. “You’re getting that funny sound in your voice again. What are you thinking?”

He smiled with his eyes. “I’m thinking that things are just beginning to make sense.”