Redemption

Chapter 66

“Okay, I’ve got bad news and bad news, which do you want first?”

Decker was talking to Alex Jamison on his cell phone.

“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter, does it?” he said.

“Okay, we struck out on the shell companies you gave us. We can’t penetrate them.”

“Okay.”

“And the tattoos on the two dead guys? I ran them through the relevant databases and came up with zip. I mean, most of the tats taken separately are well known. But the Bureau has never seen them all strung together like that before. It’s quite a mix of hate groups. Nazi, Aryan, Klansmen.”

“Well, thanks for checking.”

“No, you don’t understand, Decker. I’ve got people freaking out here. When the FBI can’t find out something, that’s news. And they’re also afraid that maybe these different hate groups are starting to come together, sharing resources, coordinating terrorist actions, accomplishing more terrible things together than they can separately.”

“You mean the shell companies are unusually hardened, and the tats may reflect some new sort of new terrorist threat?”

“Bingo. When I told Bogart, he was really concerned.”

“Well, I share that concern.”

“Anything from Rachel Katz yet?”

“She hasn’t regained consciousness. The doctors are getting worried.”

“What else can you do?”

“I can find out what’s in the basement of the American Grill.”

“Haven’t you seen the movies? You never go down to the basement.”

“I did in Baronville.”

“My point exactly.”

Decker clicked off and went in search of Lancaster, finding her getting some coffee in the break room.

“You want a cup?” she asked.

He shook his head. “We need to go to the bank.”

“Why, do you need money?”

“No, answers.”

On the drive over to Don Richards’s old bank, Decker said, “David Katz owned a late-model Mercedes sedan when he was killed. It’s the car I think his murderer drove over in. Katz and his wife were living in a very nice apartment in town. He owned the American Grill after building it with a construction and operating loan. And he might have had other loans.”

“So?”

“So how do you get a big loan like that without putting up collateral?”

“Maybe he put up collateral.”

“Meaning he had money of his own.”

“Well, yeah. He came to town with money. You know that. Duncan Marks mentioned it at dinner.”

“Yeah, everybody keeps telling me that. But no one can tell me where the money came from.”

“Well, maybe the bank can help.”

“Only reason we’re going there. Otherwise I wouldn’t set foot in one.”

“You don’t like banks?”

“Not since they foreclosed on my house here and repossessed my car. And with my shitty credit score, they don’t like me either,” replied Decker.

Bart Tinsdale was the bank’s vice president. He had been at the institution long enough to have known Don Richards. Tinsdale was tall and lanky but his suit was ill-fitting, the pants and coat sleeves too short for his limbs. His shoes were old and battered, and his socks seemed to have lost their elasticity.

However, he had an alert eye and firm handshake, and quickly guided them back to his small glass-enclosed office area off the main lobby, where they all sat around his desk.

He pointed out the window. “Every time I look out that window and see the Grill, I think about Don and David.”

“So you knew them both?” asked Decker.

Tinsdale nodded. “I was just a bank clerk back then.”

Lancaster said, “Well, you worked your way up. VP now.”

Tinsdale’s face crinkled. “I’m a little fish in a little pond. And I’m perfectly happy about that. Good place to raise kids, and I’ve got five.”

“Wow, I’ve got one and some days it’s more than I can handle.”

The banker nodded appreciatively. “My wife is a saint. And if the kids turn out well, it’s more because of her than me. But I do the coaching bit. Soccer and baseball. And I’m an assistant coach for basketball. I played in high school. Pretty full schedule.”

“I can see that.”

He sat forward. “But you didn’t come about that.”

Decker said, “No. We’ve reopened the investigation into David Katz’s and Don Richards’s murders. And we’re also investigating the attempted murder of Rachel Katz.”

Tinsdale involuntarily shuddered. “Been way too many killings around here.” He gazed at Decker. “You were here when the shootings happened at the high school. My oldest daughter was a freshman when that happened. Thank God she was okay.”

“Yeah, thank God,” said Lancaster.

“So what can I do for you?” asked Tinsdale.

“For starters, we’d like to know more about the loan that Richards made to David Katz. Do you have those records?”

“Well, they’d be on the computer. Everything’s on the computer. Even the old stuff now.” He looked at his keyboard before glancing up. “Do you need to get a warrant for that?”

“Katz is dead. I don’t see what harm there is in looking at old bank records.”

“I guess that’s true.” Tinsdale tapped some keys and maneuvered through some screens. “Okay, what exactly do you want to know?”

“How much was the loan for?” asked Decker.

Tinsdale read off the screen. “Two point five million.”

Lancaster gaped. “That’s a pretty big loan, isn’t it?”

“Well, I’ve done bigger. But it is fairly substantial for a restaurant in Burlington, I’ll grant you that, particularly since it was so many years ago. But it was apparently an expensive buildout.”

“Have you been to the Grill?” asked Decker.

“I have in fact, yes.”

“It seemed like a million other restaurants I’ve been in. Not particularly high-end.”

Tinsdale was nodding before he finished speaking. “I have to admit that I thought the same thing, actually. But the loan was granted.”

“Did he have to put up any collateral for the loan?”

“Well, we put a mortgage on the property, of course, and the improvements. That’s standard. And, yes, I would imagine he had to put up some money of his own. We don’t generally fully fund projects like this. We want the borrower to have some skin in the game, so to speak. He was applying for money for the construction and also operating funds to get the business up and going. It’s not like he could start paying down the loan from day one while they’re still building the thing. The interest would be wrapped into the principal and payments calculated off that. Let me just check on a few items.” He read down several more screens. “Okay, yes, he did put up some money of his own. A little over five hundred thousand. That went into the land purchase. And he also personally guaranteed the loan.”

“Is that typical?” asked Lancaster.

Tinsdale gave her a knowing look. “Oh, yes. Especially with a restaurant. Failure rates on those are really high. And if the customer defaults, the bank doesn’t just want to have to look to the collateral. We’re not in the business of running a restaurant. And the resale rates on a failed restaurant operation are not very good. Pennies on the dollar. People figure if a location failed, why would a second try succeed?”

“So, if he personally guaranteed the loan, he must have had some wealth,” said Lancaster.

“Assuredly yes. We would have done a complete financial due diligence on him. And he would have had to show proof of collateral funds and we would have filed a security interest on those assets. Stocks or bonds or cash accounts or whatever the collateral was, giving the bank a secured interest in those assets in case of default.”

“Could you tell us what his net worth was back then?” asked Decker.

Tinsdale hit some more keys. “Let’s see. Okay, we took an interest in some CDs that he had that were worth eighty percent of the loan amount. All told, it shows that his net worth back then was about nine million dollars.”

“Wow,” said Lancaster. “With all that money, why not just fund the construction out of his own pocket?”

Tinsdale smiled knowingly. “First rule of business, when you can, use someone else’s money.”

“Right.”

“What was the main source of his wealth?” asked Decker.

“Seemed to be stocks and bonds mostly. Couple of annuities. It was all liquid.”

“But does it show where his wealth initially came from?”

“No, it doesn’t. But all the assets were legally in his name.”

“And he was the only borrower?”

“Yes, he wasn’t married when he did this deal.”

“And Don Richards did everything by the book?” asked Lancaster.

“Absolutely. All done in accordance with the bank’s loan requirements.”

“What was Katz’s background? Education? Birthplace? History?”

Tinsdale looked over the screens. “Says here on his loan app that he had a BA and an MBA. He listed his occupation as entrepreneur.”

“But again, no source for his wealth other than the net worth figure?”

“Well, it was his money. That was verified. He might have inherited it.”

“I assumed when he died that the loan rolled over to his widow?”

“No, it didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“It was a construction loan that was rolled into a five-year loan with a fixed interest rate. But Katz paid the whole thing off about six months after the restaurant opened.”

“How did he do that?” asked Decker.

Tinsdale studied the screens once more. “It’s not entirely clear, but it seems like he raised some private money from investors and used that to pay off the loan completely.”

“And did he take out any more loans with the bank?”

“There were two lines of credit for a million each that he took out around the same time. He fully drew down on both and then paid them off. Then he bought an old factory building for about three million with an eye to turning it into retail and living space. He took out a loan for that too. It was finished after he died.”

“Is the loan still outstanding on that one?”

Tinsdale moved through some more screens. “No. Katz paid that one off too.”

“When?”

“Let me see. It says here it was paid in full one year after he took it out.”

“But you said the building was finished after he died,” said Decker.

“That’s right. They were only about halfway done when he was killed.” Tinsdale shrugged. “Apparently he had another round of investment money come in and they took the loan out.”

“And did Don Richards work on all these deals?”

“That’s right. He was sort of Katz’s go-to person.”

“Has Rachel Katz applied for any loans from the bank?”

“No. She doesn’t even have a personal account with us. I think she has some deep pockets behind her. Doesn’t need a commercial lending source anymore. She seems to be rolling in money right now.”

“Nice job if you can get it,” said Lancaster dryly.

Outside, Decker looked to the sky. “We were led to believe that the only deal Katz and Richards worked on was for the American Grill. But that wasn’t the case. There were the lines of credit and the old factory building.”

“Okay, but what did we get out of all that except that some people have all the friggin’ luck, and all the money?” asked Lancaster.

“When somebody keeps paying off big loans unusually early because they got ‘investment money’ rolling in from shell companies, it tells me one thing.” He looked at his partner.

Lancaster nodded. “David Katz was cleaning money.”

“Exactly. And I wonder if Rachel Katz took over the laundry business when he died.”