Silver Justice

Chapter 4

Silver stood at the head of the table in the crowded conference room, the day having sped by in a whirlwind. After glancing around to silence the murmured discussion, she introduced Richard to the task force.

Seth launched into a review of the case then mopped his brow and sighed before drawing his conclusions.

“Time of death was four a.m., give or take. Nobody saw anything, no suspicious activity, no shady characters skulking around. The maid only knows what I have there in the report. Found the body; the boss was a wonderful man; nobody would want to hurt him.”

“All right. So he was a saint. Any ideas on how the perp got in and out?” Silver asked.

“The service entrance deadbolt shows indeterminate signs of having been picked. It’s not conclusive, but it looks like that was the way out. As far as gaining entrance, it looks like he got through the front door while the doorman was in the can. Same scratches on the lock levers, but only from the outside. The service entrance has abrasions on the inside.”

“I don’t suppose we got lucky with any security footage?”

“It’s an older building, so there is none,” Seth reported.

“How about traffic cams in the area?”

“We’ve pulled the feeds, but there are hundreds of people from the time of the killing until nine, when the maid arrived. Thousands, actually. I’m hoping we can narrow the time down some, but even so…”

Silver tried to contain her frustration. “What else?”

Richard cleared his throat. All eyes swiveled to the new team member. He got to his feet, studying a piece of paper.

“Ali Kurup, age forty-two, single, never married, lived alone. Was one of two principals in a software company that created custom applications for the financial industry. A wealthy man, with homes in Aruba, New York, Paris and Buenos Aires.”

“Was he ever investigated by the SEC?” Silver asked, fearing she knew the answer. “Two of the other victims had been.”

“Nope. Clean as a whistle. At least on the surface. But some interesting threads start to appear if you dig deeper,” Richard said.

“Like what?” Seth asked.

“Well, Ali wasn’t just a software guru. He had another sideline that made his software empire seem like small potatoes. Our victim was the principal architect, along with another man, of virtually every electronic trading platform in the United States. All the electronic exchanges — every one — were designed by him.”

The room was silent for a few moments.

“I don’t understand,” said Tom Brandt, one of the agents who worked with Seth.

“It means that all of the exchanges that popped up over the last fifteen years, that do huge amounts of trading — competition to the American and New York Stock Exchanges — were created either by Ali, or using his software. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that over half the trading in the U.S. markets goes over one of his platforms.”

“Wow.” Silver spoke for the group.

“Yes. Wow is right.”

“And yet nobody has ever heard of him.”

“Correct,” Richard said. “But it gets even stranger from there. Because of his partner and his associates.” At this point he had the room’s full attention. “His partner was a gentleman by the name of Farouk Iben Al Azir, who is also an unknown. But not his brother, Sharif, who is on the government’s watch list of suspected terrorist financiers supporting Muslim fundamentalist organizations hostile to the United States’ interests.”

Richard sat back down, having said his piece. Nobody spoke.

“Wait a minute. You’re saying that one of the two men who created the trading platforms used for the majority of trades in the United States is the brother of a known terrorist financier?” Silver pronounced each word carefully.

“Suspected. Brother of a suspected terrorist financier. Born in Lebanon. When he goes back there, he’s routinely in the company of several clerics who call for terrorist attacks against the U.S.. Known to frequent a mosque in Chicago that’s a who’s who of suspected financiers. Big on causes like Hamas and the Islamic Jihad,” Richard explained.

“And the only reason that anyone cares is because his partner got killed? Not because it seems like a generally bad idea that a group as anti-American as it gets is one degree of separation from the guys who created the wiring for the modern stock market? Am I missing something here?” Silver asked, trying to process the information so it made sense.

“I’m unaware of any ongoing investigations. Nothing came up. I ran Ali through the computers and the partnership and past business interests were there along with about twenty shell companies suspected of being tied to them — but no hard evidence linking them. The terrorism connection only came up because I went beyond what we normally would have done for a homicide. My forensic accounting background, I guess,” Richard said sheepishly.

“But you would agree that this is alarming?”

Richard sighed. “Of course it is. And it opens a whole other can of worms. If there’s a foreign terrorism element, then the entire serial killing premise could be a ruse — a cover for some sort of covert operation. I’d say it warrants going back and seeing if there are any connections in the other victims’ pasts. It may be nothing, but in my line of work there are no such things as coincidences. When I go in and do an audit, I just assume that nothing is as it appears and that everyone is lying. I approached this case the same way, starting with the identity of the victim. Now, maybe world-class baddies being so close to him is immaterial. But I wouldn’t bet on it. I think we need to keep turning over rocks and see what we find. Could be the other victims are angels. But given the SEC settlements, my money is on that they aren’t.”

“Right, then. The question is what bad apples pop up when we really go in-depth. How long do you think it will take to put some muscle behind this?” Silver asked.

“If I can get one of my analysts on it, that would speed things along. But nothing happens fast. We need to look at every aspect of all four victims, going back to their school years. Maybe even further back. There’s literally no telling what we’ll find, or if there’s a connection, where or how it’s hidden.”

“Let’s discuss the other three victims. The second one, David Petron. A hedge fund manager living in Connecticut. Fifty-nine. Married, although the wife was in Europe at the time of the killing. Two kids — son and a daughter. The son was in the house with him and was victim number three. He worked with his dad at the same hedge fund. Richard, maybe you can give us an overview of what a hedge fund is and how they operate?” Silver prompted.

Richard cleared his throat. “A hedge fund is basically a big investment pool — an anonymous fund of cash. It’s an entity that collects money from investors and then invests however its charter allows. There’s virtually no regulation on the industry, and it is estimated hedge funds control two trillion dollars.”

“Why no regulation?” Seth asked.

“Because the industry is tremendously rich and powerful. Its political clout kills any attempts to impose regulation. Aside from a few token nuisance requirements, the reality is that they’re black boxes with no transparency. And that’s how they like it — they have an army of lobbyists that fight any regulation tooth and nail. Hedge funds are also by far the largest players in the markets. One fund alone is estimated to account for over fifty percent of the trading on the NYSE, many days. It is mind-boggling, the amount of money we’re talking.”

“And victim number two ran one?” Silver asked, more a statement than question.

“Yes,” Richard confirmed, “but he was relatively small potatoes. His fund was eight hundred million.”

“That’s small?” Sam Aravian asked from the back of the room, his tone skeptical.

“Sure. We’re talking an industry where some of the more successful managers make two to three billion dollars a year, personally, and have funds that are ten billion and up. Eight hundred million isn’t even in the B league. It’s unlikely that his take home was more than thirty million on a flat year. Depends on his management agreement and the percentage of any upside.”

Sam whistled. “I’m in the wrong business.”

The agent across from him chuckled.

Silver nodded.

“Seth, brief the room on that set of murders.”

Seth shuffled his papers. “Big house in Connecticut went up in a blaze. Victim number two, the hedge fund manager, had been tied to his bed with electrical wire — we know because once it was extinguished about the only thing left were traces of the wire, the iron bed frame and the remains of the corpse. Victim number three — his son — had been bound to a chair in the hall leading to the basement and died of smoke inhalation. We aren’t sure that he was intended as a victim, though. If the goal was to burn him alive, like Dad, the killer went about it all wrong. There was literally no place else he could have left him that would have been safer from the fire. It was the smoke that got him.”

“And how do we know the killings were The Regulator’s work?” Richard asked.

“He left his calling card in the father’s Bentley, parked in the driveway. The firemen and local police found it and called us. Message on the back was ‘Hellfire Burns’.”

“After going over the scene for days, we came up with no clues.” Silver paused. “And victim number one?”

“He was discovered in his car in Boca Raton, Florida, stabbed three times. The vehicle was found adjacent to a liquor store in a seedy area of town, in a shopping center parking lot. Had been there most of the night. There was a security guard, but he doesn’t remember seeing anything. Probably inside watching TV or dozing,” Seth reasoned. “The card was stuck in the victim’s mouth. Message on the back said, ‘Red Light Special’.”

“As well as victims two and three, there’s a full background on the first victim in the files,” Silver added. “A financial planner named Stewart Rothcliff. The local cops called us in after the perp contacted the press and announced there would be more to come. He wanted attention right out of the gate and took steps to guarantee it. Although if your theory that this could be a cover for something else is correct, that would play into it nicely.”

“It’s not my theory. I’m simply mentioning the possibility. I’ll need a few more days of digging to formulate any theories. What I can say after a cursory look is that I see no obvious connection between the victims, beyond that everyone worked in the industry. One was a financial advisor in Florida — the retirement belt. Another was a high-rolling hedge fund partner in the city, who lived in Connecticut and worked with his son…” Richard flipped his pencil onto the table. “The final victim was a technology type whose partner has questionable associates, to put it mildly. None of that adds up to an obvious motive or a suspect,” Richard concluded.

Silver nodded. “Fair enough. Folks, you can see that our new colleague from Financial Crimes brings a valuable difference in perspective, and I hope everyone gives him the cooperation and support he’ll need. Let’s plan on another meeting tomorrow morning, ten a.m., to compare notes. We should have something more from forensics by then, and who knows — CSI may have found something.” Silver felt the words ring hollow in her ears.

The meeting broke up with murmurings and the sound of chairs scraping the ceramic tile floor. Silver glanced at her watch. She’d need to move to get Kennedy from daycare before it closed.

Which returned the Eric confrontation to the forefront of her thoughts. And the fact that she’d see him within a few hours when he stopped to pick up Kennedy for the ballet.

Some days sucked.

Today had earned a position in her top sucking days of the year, and she still had the evening to go.

Things weren’t looking promising.

Traffic was a snarl, gridlocked in most intersections as short-tempered drivers jockeyed for meager advantage. One of Silver’s annoyances on even balmy late spring days was how clogged the streets could get. She left her Bureau car at the lot overnight and usually took the subway, but she was running late and had decided to splurge for a cab. Finding one had been a challenge, and she was now regretting her decision as they inched north towards the daycare near the Flatiron district.

The taxi pulled to the curb in front of the daycare center, and Silver paid the driver and got out. She hated that she had to leave her daughter there from when school let out at two until six, but it was an imperfect world. She was doing her best, and the truth was that Kennedy enjoyed helping the owner, Miriam, with the younger kids. Kennedy was practically an employee after five years there. Miriam loved her and treated her as if she was her own daughter.

Silver swung the battered wooden front door open and waved at the receptionist, who was chatting on the phone and barely glanced up. The usual din of children from the rear was absent — she checked her watch and saw that it was six twenty — past official closing time.

She entered the largest play room to find Miriam sitting with Kennedy at one of the tables, going over schoolwork with her. Her daughter’s unruly hair hung in her face as she concentrated on whatever math problem she was solving. That should have been Silver helping her daughter, not a surrogate. Silver felt a twinge of guilt and sadness and something else. Jealousy? Possibly. Time was going by so fast.

Kennedy looked up from her studies, small hand clutching a pencil, nails black, her school uniform accented by a black woven bracelet and a black leather necklace suspending a silver cross.

“Hey, Mom. Late, huh?” she said.

“Yup. Another long one. And traffic was a bear. Miriam, I’m so sorry…”

“Not a problem. Just don’t let it happen again, or I’ll have to charge you my hotel rate, and it ain’t pretty,” Miriam teased, with a smile that lit up her face.

Even though she’d been born the following decade, Miriam was a throwback to the Sixties who favored clothes that would have been more congruous at a Grateful Dead concert than a New York daycare. A frustrated sculptor from Ohio, she always smelled vaguely like patchouli and often bemoaned she’d been born twenty years too late — had missed the Summer of Love through a cruel trick of temporal fate.

“Come on, sweetheart. Big night tonight,” Silver said, smoothing Kennedy’s hair with her hand. Kennedy pulled away, already too old for such childlike displays of affection. Silver continued without missing a beat. “It’s all she’s talked about for weeks. New York City Ballet.”

Kennedy rolled her eyes. “TMI.”

Too Much Information.

She’d started speaking in acronyms six months earlier, and Silver had made a conscious effort not to let it annoy her.

“Okay. Collect your gear and let’s hit it. I’m going to have my hands full getting you fed and cleaned up in time for your…for your pick up.”

She just couldn’t bring herself to use the term ‘father’. Her anger bubbled up almost to the surface as she recalled the afternoon’s insulting interaction. Now more than ever, Eric was the enemy, having taken the gloves off and shown his true intentions. But she would not allow her feelings to color Kennedy’s evening. They’d have to discuss things soon enough, but tonight she could have her dream date. There would be time to explain how her scumbag ex wanted to break up their little family unit so he could stick it to her and appear to be a more sensitive candidate when he ran for office. Silver knew he was engaged to an advertising executive almost ten years his junior — Amber — who was as ambitious and transparently selfish as he was. No doubt the coming nuptials were also window dressing for his career.

They were a perfect match — photogenic, artificial, driven and self-involved.

I will not launch into another ‘beat up on Silver for being so stupid as to marry Eric’ session. Silver thrust the mental images away, preferring to focus on Kennedy in the here and now. The only good thing to come out of the union.

“Are you done with your homework?” Silver asked as Kennedy packed her books into her bag.

“Half an hour ago. Miriam and I were just going over the next chapter so I’d be prepped.”

When had Kennedy switched to calling her Miriam instead of Miss Miriam?

“All right, then. Let’s make tracks for home, shall we?” Silver suggested, her voice adopting more of a commanding, no-arguments approach than her usual light demeanor. Kennedy better not start trying to call her Silver instead of Mom any time soon, though, or there would be one more child sold to the circus this year.

“’Bout time,” Kennedy muttered, but Silver let it go. She was at an age where she was starting to test boundaries — so Silver chose her battles carefully. Token disgruntled ennui didn’t really qualify.

“You’re welcome,” Silver replied, pretending to mishear her angelic offspring’s comment. She exchanged a glance with Miriam, who barely concealed her smile.

“Okay, you two. Stay out of trouble. Enjoy the ballet,” Miriam enthused.

“Again. Sorry for being late. Monster day,” Silver explained.

“Don’t sweat it. See you manana.”

Mother and daughter trudged down the sidewalk, part of the swarm that was the New York rush hour. Silver always felt the desire to hold Kennedy’s hand, but she had rejected that as suitable only for babies a few years back. It seemed like only yesterday she’d been a toddler, wobbling around on unsteady legs, a drunken sailor on a pitching deck. Now, she was all energy and attitude and independence, having modeled her mother’s self-dependent view of the world.

They crossed the street and weaved their way through the rushing humanity, and made it to the flat in twelve minutes, Silver glancing nervously at her watch. They wouldn’t have much time.

“Go clean up, and don’t dawdle. You need to eat before you go. No excuses,” Silver ordered as she unlocked the two deadbolts, to be greeted by the heady stagnant air from the hall as it wafted past her.

“What’s on the menu?” Kennedy asked as she pushed into the tiny entry foyer and dumped her backpack by the walnut side table.

“Leftover spaghetti. Your favorite.”

“I don’t want any. It’s fattening,” Kennedy said on her way to her room.

Silver considered Kennedy’s frame: three percent body fat, all petulant arms and legs and winsome grace.

“If you eat two pounds of it. But that’s what’s for dinner, so while your health and fitness concerns are noted, you either eat it or someone else will be going to the performance tonight.”

Kennedy greeted the ultimatum with the closing of her bedroom door. Dinner was a purely token, increasingly obligatory battle that she didn’t even expect to win. She was merely signaling yet another veiled criticism of Silver’s parenting. Par for the course as kids went through their snotty phase. Silver only hoped she would grow out of it by twenty-five or so.

While Silver was microwaving and setting the table, Kennedy emerged from the shared bathroom, decked in head-to-toe black — black jeans, a black T-shirt with black sequins on it, and a black jacket she’d insisted on for her tenth birthday. Silver bit her tongue and decided against commenting. Kennedy had taken a decidedly gloomy turn over the last six months, but on balance it was the least of her problems — at least she’d stopped pulling her eyelashes out; what the therapist had diagnosed as Trichotillomania — a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder caused by anxiety.

That had started when she was eight and had developed into a real problem over the course of a year. Kennedy had seemed completely unaware she was doing it, and it had driven Silver nutty on the occasions she had picked her up from daycare and found her to be missing half her upper lashes. They had tried everything — wearing gloves at night, putting petroleum jelly on her lashes, cognitive behavioral techniques — but the problem had continued until Silver had sought a second opinion from a doctor who had been recommended by the school. Dr. Thelma, as she liked to be called, was a large, friendly, cheery woman who specialized in treating children. She had quickly gotten to the root problem — Kennedy felt unbalanced and uncertain about the future since the marriage had ended, and internalized a lot of her worry, ultimately taking it out on herself.

They had worked together as a team on modifying the urge to pull, and Kennedy had been doing well for almost nine months — she’d channeled her dissatisfaction into more traditional forms of protest, like the adoption of the ghoulish styling she and some of her school friends now favored. If it was a choice of a kid who wanted to look like a pallbearer in a vampire film or one that was mutilating herself, that was an easy one.

Silver glanced at her as she walked around the small dining table. “Is that makeup? Eyeliner?” Silver asked, trying to keep her voice neutral.

“Just a little. It’s a special occasion. Big production. The theater.”

“Off. Now. No arguments. We’ve discussed this, and not a chance in hell do you wear makeup before you’re in high school, at the earliest. Go. Don’t start down this road tonight, Kennedy, or I will end it here and now, and you will not be going anywhere. Understood?”

Kennedy pushed back her chair, noisily scraping it against the hardwood floor. “Lots of the other girls are wearing it,” she protested.

“No, they aren’t. Not at ten. And by the way, if lots of the other girls were taking drugs, or jumping in front of busses, would that make it a good idea?”

“This sucks. I feel like I’m in some kind of nightmare prison,” she said, stomping her black hiking boots as she retreated to the bathroom.

“Yes. Poor you. A nightmare where you go to the ballet and have a private chef preparing your meals. It’s a kind of hell on earth, I can see already. How do you manage?”

The bathroom door slammed.

Silver wasn’t even going to get into the issue of Kennedy touching her makeup. That was the least of the offenses, and one better left for another day.

She put the plates of steaming spaghetti on the table and waited patiently. Three, four, five minutes crawled by before Kennedy emerged, sans eyeliner, and truculently took her seat. Silver chanced a surreptitious peek at Kennedy’s eyelashes — thank God, all there.

“Don’t worry. I’m not pulling them out,” Kennedy said as she lifted a forkful of pasta and blew on it, watching the steam rise from the plate as she gauged how hot it was.

“That’s good, sweetheart. You’ve made incredible progress.”

“Yeah. I guess being a nutcase is a lot of trouble for everyone,” she tossed out, then stuffed the noodles in her mouth.

Silver put her fork down, considering this new wrinkle. What was bringing it on?

“You’re not a nutcase, and you’re not a lot of trouble. Kennedy. Look at me. What is going on in your head? Why are you being this way? Why start a fight with me when you’re not even going to see me for the next three hours? Talk. Come on.”

“Never mind.”

Silver refused to rise to the dismissive bait. “That isn’t much of an explanation.”

“Whatever.”

Silver counted slowly to three, fighting the urge to react. Kennedy, for whatever reason, was playing let’s make Mommy miserable, and she wasn’t going to give her daughter the power to trigger an explosion.

“When this case is over, I was thinking about us going away for a week, whenever school has a break. Maybe to Florida,” she tried, changing the subject to something more upbeat.

“Florida sucks. It’s hot and humid, and everyone’s a million years old.”

“Well, it’s true that the weather can be unpleasant, and there are a lot of older folks there…”

Kennedy suddenly became animated.

“Why not California? I can learn to surf!” she exclaimed, loading up another forkful of noodles.

Silver appeared to consider it. “Do they let goth vampires surf? Isn’t there some kind of code of ethics or something?”

“It’s a very flexible lifestyle,” Kennedy intoned seriously, causing them both to explode in a fit of giggling.

They discussed the various merits of California beaches as they finished dinner. The intercom buzzer sounded. Silver glanced at the clock and saw that the time had flown. She got up while Kennedy carried their plates into the kitchen and walked over to the ancient contrivance on the wall.

“Yes?”

“It’s me. Is she ready?” Eric's voice boomed from the speaker.

“YES!” Kennedy screamed from behind her, racing for the door.

“Be there in a second.” Silver wasn’t interested in inviting him up. She grabbed her keys and reached for the locks. “I’ll walk you down. Remember to call me five minutes before you get back so I can meet you at the front door.”

Kennedy responded with her best ten-year-old sneer, but nodded.

They made their way to the ground floor in record time. Eric was standing in front of the building wearing a hand-tailored, navy blue suit, crisp white shirt, no tie. She remained halfway up the first flight of stairs, watching as Kennedy ran to the entrance, opened the door, then threw her arms around her father. That figured — Silver got the cold shoulder when trying to hold her hand, but Eric got greeted like he was returning from the war. She didn’t want to dwell on it, but she could have sworn he threw her a smug look.

At that moment she hated him with an intensity that surprised her. She watched as Kennedy unwrapped herself from him and they set off down the street.

There was only one thing she could think of as she climbed the stairs back to the flat.

It was time for a glass of cabernet and some chocolate.

Maybe she’d clean her guns while she was at it. That always seemed to soothe her troubled spirit.

Just an ordinary evening at home.