Simply Lies

Chapter 21

“You okay?” asked Sullivan.

They were sitting in a café on the outskirts of downtown Norfolk. Gibson was staring into her iced tea like it was a drowning pool and all who she cared about were trapped in it with her.

“What? No, I’m fine. Just thinking some things through.”

What she was thinking through was the short list of names she had gotten from Clarisse.

Daniel Pottinger had not been messing around if the names of his business associates were actually on the up-and-up. She had heard of three of the four names. Pretty much everyone in law enforcement had. One was from Mexico. One from Russia. One from China. That was the one she hadn’t heard of, and couldn’t pronounce his name.

The last name was all American, and he was the one living in the area. And he scared the crap out of her. All these guys were way out of her league.

Yeah, I used to be a cop but now I drive a Chrysler minivan. My daughter spit all of her scrambled eggs back onto her plate this morning just because she found out she could and thought it was the funniest thing ever. I am not Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. Not in real life. Not in the movies. Not even in my dreams unless I’m drunk. These guys eat Feds for breakfast. They throw prosecutors off buildings in a dozen countries. I would be roadkill to them, plain and simple. No challenge, no sweat at all.

The American was Nathan Trask. A real piece of work with the shadiest of connections, and neither the Feds nor the states, nor anyone else in the world, could lay a glove on him. To the ignorant public he was a legit businessman, if they even knew who he was, which they probably didn’t. To the cop world he was a criminal heavyweight that they were itching to indict, but just could never seem to get there. Evidence disappeared; police and prosecutors were compromised or bribed. Witnesses missed their time on the stand because they were no longer living. And unless you could prove Trask was behind it, the judge just ended up screaming at the prosecutors for not being able to keep their witnesses breathing, while Trask’s high-priced lawyers tried hard not to laugh their asses off.

“How are your kids doing?”

“Fine. Just being kids. They’re at an age that wallops the crap out of you physically and it’s also the time that as a parent you would never want to miss. Their mess-ups now are easy to clean up. Not so when they’re teenagers and then young adults.”

Sullivan looked at her strangely. “You have teenage children, too? Must’ve started young.”

“No, I was speaking about the misery I put my parents through at those ages. Getting back to the case, you didn’t mention the poison that was used to kill Langhorne.”

“Botulinum toxin, type A. Apparently it’s considered the deadliest poison in the world, or close to it. Prevents your muscles from working. Heart stops beating, you can’t breathe, everything shuts down. Just a tiny dose can do it. A far tinier dose and you can get rid of those annoying frown lines on your forehead for a bit. Just don’t get the amount wrong or the only place you won’t be frowning is in your coffin.”

“Yeah, sounds tempting.”

“There was something else that came up on the post.”

“What was that?” she asked.

“Langhorne had terminal brain cancer. The man had maybe a few months to live.”

“Shouldn’t he have been in a hospital or hospice, then?”

“You would think. But he apparently went to his house, laid off his entire staff, and settled down to die.”

“He must have been in a lot of pain.”

“The medical examiner also found a ton of morphine in his system. He was apparently self-regulating for his pain.”

“I think you might be off about one thing.”

He cocked his head at her. “What do you mean?”

“It was like he went to Stormfield, fired the staff, and waited, not to die, but for someone to come and kill him.”

“That’s an extraordinary theory.”

“It’s an extraordinary case, at least so far.” She glanced down at his hand. “I don’t see a wedding band, but I know lots of cops who don’t wear them on the job.”

Okay, where did that come from, Mick?

Sullivan rubbed that spot on his finger. “I was engaged, once. Didn’t work out.”

“I wish I hadn’t pulled the trigger on my walk down the aisle.”

He grinned and turned his head a bit. She noted the scar that poked above his shirt collar.

“Work souvenir?” she said, pointing at it.

He flinched and then nodded. “I was a little sloppy on an arrest when I was in uniform. Didn’t search the perp carefully enough. He pulled a knife. Another half inch to the right, I’m not sitting here with you.”

She shook her head. “However much they pay cops, it’s not enough. So, tell me about the US marshal we’re going to be meeting.”

“Earl Beckett. Been doing his job for well over twenty-five years.”

“So was Pottinger/Langhorne in WITSEC?”

“I don’t think Earl would bother meeting if he wasn’t.”

“But what is he allowed to tell us?”

“Considering Langhorne’s been murdered, I hope a lot.”

“Pretty much no one who stayed in WITSEC and followed the rules has ever ended up being murdered by the people they were being protected against,” Gibson noted.

“So either Langhorne is the rare exception or—”

“—or he voluntarily left WITSEC and got himself killed. Which seems far more likely, since I don’t see WITSEC springing for a place like Stormfield.”

“Hopefully he can tell us what happened to Langhorne’s family.”

“I’m not sure hope is going to cut it,” noted Gibson.

“But even cops can hold out for it,” said Sullivan, grinning and tapping her hand. That was a first in their relationship, thought Gibson, who immediately caught herself.

What relationship? She recalibrated. “Maybe whatever Daniel Pottinger has been up to lately got him killed. It may have nothing to do with what he did decades ago as Harry Langhorne.”

Sullivan slipped a French fry into his mouth and munched on it. “Come on, what are the odds?”

Yeah, but I have a list of global psychopaths Pottinger was doing business with and you don’t.

“Apart from the little you told me about Pottinger, I know nothing about what he’s been doing all this time, or when Langhorne changed his name.”

Sullivan shrugged. “I don’t know all that much, either. Like I told you, Pottinger came here around six years ago and bought the property from the Turners.”

“Have you been in contact with the Turners? Did they know why he was coming to the area?”

“I have talked to them. They say they never met him. It was all handled by his representatives. Lawyers, real estate agents, financial people.”

“All that money and he was living alone in that mausoleum at the end.”

“People make choices.”

“Was that secret room always there?”

“I asked John Turner that when I talked to him. He said his great-grandfather had put that in. They used to play hide-and-seek, and that was a popular destination. Until people caught on, that is.”

“So do you think the Stormfield acquisition was just a money-laundering bit?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“You mind?” She eyed his fries.

“What? No, go ahead. I should have ordered the fruit salad as my side, but I have a weakness for things that aren’t good for me.”

I think I have you beat in that department, buddy, thought Gibson, thinking of her choice in husbands.

She snagged a couple of fries, bit into one, and almost purred. “I’ve been trying to cut this stuff out and lose some of the baby weight, but it’s harder than I thought it would be. As my mother loves to point out.”

“Well, as someone who will never have to go through that, all I’m going to say is hat’s off to you whatever you do or don’t do.”

She smiled. “I’m beginning to like your style, Will.” She inwardly groaned at such a stupid line. “So getting back to the money laundering. What did Stormfield sell for?”

“The property records say five mill.”

That drew a whistle from Gibson. “Langhorne was a mob accountant. It’s not like those folks are millionaires. So why do I think that when Langhorne disappeared he didn’t do so empty-handed?”

“Stealing from the mob is pretty much suicidal.”

“So is turning state’s evidence against them. Langhorne had already crossed that Rubicon. So why not go for the brass ring in the process?”

“So you think the money-laundering angle is legit?” he asked.

“Look, I spend all my time now looking for assets just like that. ‘Dirty money’ means it goes through multiple washing machines and comes out smelling like it was filled with nothing except healthy doses of Febreze. If he was smart enough to hoodwink the mob and take their money, I think he was smart enough to keep moving it around in an elaborate shell game. And it’s not like the Feds would have known about him stealing any money. If they had they would have confiscated it. At least in an ideal world. But maybe the world wasn’t ideal back then.”

“Hell, and you think it is now?” retorted Sullivan with a chuckle, but it was clear he was intrigued by her theory. “But your point is valid. So the guy had the mansion and probably other assets.”

“And if he managed to invest it all somehow, over the years, I would imagine those assets have grown exponentially.”

“I do know that he paid cash for Stormfield. And they would have checked that the funds came from legit sources.”

“After thirty-plus years, you can make anything look legit,” replied Gibson. “Even mob money.”

“You know, your experience in ferreting out assets might come in handy for our investigation.”

“Now, I like how that sounds.”

“How what sounds?”

“Our investigation.” She checked her watch. “And it’s time to go add to it.”