Strange Bedfellows

20

Nothing But the Son

By the time Mario appeared in our offices on Monday morning, flanked by the attorneys Merritt and Sarkisian, our team had been at it nonstop for almost twenty-four hours, making phone calls to Belle Thornton’s nursing home in New Jersey finalizing the review of Mario’s financial records, going over Chuck Zuccari’s, getting reports in from SID’s Latent Prints and Questioned Documents technicians, and conferring on strategy and jurisdictional issues with the Feds. While Billie was tracking down the officers at the scene that night, Thor, Perkins, and I met with Mario in MIA’s office, where we’d arrayed ourselves and all the paperwork at one end of the conference table. Wunderlich and an FBI agent we’d met on Friday occupied the other end, forcing Mario and his attorneys to sit in the middle.

Before we could begin, Sarkisian said: “My client would like to make a statement.”

“Okay.” Thor raised an eyebrow at our team while Wunderlich and the FBI agent sat up a little straighter in their chairs.

Mario pulled a typed sheet out of his jacket pocket and began to read. “As long ago as last September, I began to suspect that my father, Carlo Zuccari, had entered into a conspiracy to murder Mr. Malik Shareef, a business associate.”

Looks were exchanged around the room, but no one said a word. Mario licked his lips and continued. “The reasons for his actions, I believed, stem from his belief that his wife, Alma, was having an affair with Mr. Shareef. I have since confirmed that Pete Collins, the company’s security director, introduced my father to Jeff Leykis and Luis Ybarra, convicted felons known to Mr. Collins, whom my father paid to kill Mr. Shareef.”

Last night Perkins had found canceled checks that Chuck had written to Leykis and Ybarra for twenty-five thousand each shortly before the shooting as well as several small checks Mario had written to them totalling the same amount, so Mario coming forward with his statement now was too little too late. He was about to continue when I interrupted him. “You can save the prepared statement for the press, Mr. Zuccari. How did you come by this information?”

“Ah…” Mario looked hesitantly to Merritt, who nodded encouragement. “Pete came to me last October, saying that Leykis and Ybarra were demanding an additional payment for an undisclosed assignment they’d undertaken for my father. It didn’t take much to figure out what their assignment was and that what they were trying to do, in essence, was extort money from the company in exchange for their silence.”

Thor smiled grimly. “And you’re in the habit of opening your checkbook for every lowlife who comes knocking on your door demanding money?” As Mario blanched, Thor added: “We’ve seen the checks you wrote to them.”

“There’d been rumors about Alma’s interest in Mr. Shareef,” Mario replied. “So I thought it best to pay them to go away. When they didn’t, I figured maybe we should hire them to watch over my father and Alma, inasmuch as I didn’t want to run the risk of retaliation from Mrs. Shareef for my father’s indiscretion.”

“Indiscretion?” Thor exclaimed, his smile growing to one of complete disbelief. “This little twerp did not call conspiracy to commit murder an indiscretion!”

At the same time, Wunderlich was saying: “That’s it. I’ve heard enough of this crap.” He gestured to his FBI colleague, who removed the handcuffs on his belt and approached the middle of the table. “Mario Zuccari, you’re under arrest for embezzlement.”

“What the-?” Merritt exclaimed as the agent pushed him aside, cuffed the protesting Mario, and moved him to their end of the table, where he sat squirming.

“Just a minute!” Sarkisian objected. “My client came here with every intention of cooperating in solving the murder of Mr. Shareef. Why are you accusing him of embezzlement?”

“Sit down and shut up, Mr. Sarkisian,” Thor ordered, while Mario was being read his rights. “I don’t know what kind of game your client is playing, but it’s over now.” He turned to Perkins. “Go on, Jackie. Tell them what we’ve got.”

“Natalie Johnson and Felton Carruthers have been conspiring for four years with one of your managers in the Phillipines to embezzle funds from the company, at a rate of one to four hundred thousand per month.” She flipped open a file and leafed through some papers. “Jose Agnafilo, a vice president in the company’s Philippine operations in Laguna, approved the phony invoices for payment to Sonrisa Safety and Security and then Johnson would countersign them, except for two or three which were countersigned by Carruthers when the amounts exceeded her authorization limit. We suspect Agnafilo then funneled the money back to accounts Johnson and Carruthers had set up here and in the Philippines, judging by the bank statements we seized from their homes.”

“Funny, your statement failed to mention any of this,” Wunderlich said to Mario, toying with him like a cat with a ball of yarn.

“We thought the LAPD was more interested in the murder than the embezzlement,” Merritt explained.

Thor snorted. “That’s the lamest excuse I’ve heard in a long time. We’re interested in whatever Mr. Zuccari has to tell us that’s relevant to our investigation!”

“In exchange for?” Merritt asked.

“Mr. Zuccari’s in no real position to bargain,” Wunderlich replied, “given that he’s known about the embezzlement for a year and has done nothing to stop it.”

Mario’s jaw tightened as he glanced nervously at Merritt, who cleared his throat. “We’ve suspected Natalie and Felton for some time,” the attorney said. “At the board’s direction, Mario was investigating it quietly, through the company’s internal auditing department.”

“We were hoping we could get Johnson and Carruthers to make restitution,” Mario added, “and save the company and its stockholders a public scandal that could destroy shareholder value.”

“Seems your client wants to do everything quietly,” Thor said sarcastically, “even be an accessory after the fact to embezzlement and murder, as long as the company’s precious stock price isn’t compromised!”

“Wh-what are you talking about?” Mario’s voice came out in a squeak. “I had nothing to do with any of this!”

“Then how do you account for your forging Felton Carruthers’s signature on these authorizations to pay Sonrisa?” Perkins said, her hand resting on the report we’d received from Questioned Documents. “You signed them back in March of last year, a month after the audit manager from Shuttleworth and Bezney came to you with his suspicions.”

“That’s-that’s not my signature!” he sputtered. “Felton must have done that on his own.”

“Just like it’s not your signature authorizing hiring Mr. Leykis and Mr. Ybarra?” Thor asked.

“I explained why we hired them!”

“Ah, yes, the extortion,” Thor said, and shook his head. “Sorry, son, but we’re not buying it. I think you’re telling us about Leykis and Ybarra now because you knew we’d find the canceled checks you and the company wrote to them and wonder why they were being paid so handsomely. What happened-were these guys thugs you hired to shoot your father and then couldn’t get rid of after they botched the job?”

“I would never pay someone to shoot my father,” Mario said through gritted teeth.

“Why not?” I asked. “After all, he turned against you as his successor.”

“That’s not it!”

“Then why not?” Thor repeated, taunting him now. “Because you’re such an upstanding citizen?”

“No!” Mario shouted. “Because, for all the sins my father’s committed, God’s got a greater punishment in mind for him than I could ever imagine!”

I picked up a file, walked over to Mario, and sat in the chair next to him. “I know you haven’t been exactly chomping at the bit to help our investigation these past few days, Mario, but I’m surprised at this outright hostility toward your father. You’ve always impressed me as a loyal and dutiful son. Why the sudden change of heart?”

“The truth needed to come out.” He turned away from me a bit, head down as he mumbled. “He’s been lying for too many years.”

I leaned forward and caught Thor’s eye, saw him nod encouragement. “Lying about what, Mr. Zuccari?” I watched as Mario sat awkwardly in his chair, hands cuffed behind his back, his jaw working furiously. I leaned over and whispered: “Frankly, Mr. Zuccari, this bull you’ve been spreading around about your father contracting to have Malik Shareef murdered is a little hard to accept, especially given the fact that you were the one who was paying hush money to Leykis and Ybarra.”

“Don’t forget the money he paid Nilo Engalla to stop investigating the embezzlement,” Perlans added.

“I did no such thing!” Mario asserted, but his eyes told me otherwise.

“I’m sorry, but my client doesn’t have to listen to this,” Sarkisian said, rising from his chair.

“Yes, David, he does!” Merritt interrupted. “We’ve got to get to the bottom of this if we have any hope of putting a face on this thing, what with the embezzlement, the conspiracy, and now Chuck’s condition taking this unexpected turn.”

“But you’ve already got Gabriella in place, running the company!” Sarkisian protested.

“Gabby’s just a placeholder to appease her mother and get us through this transition,” Merritt scoffed. “Everyone knows that Mario’s the brains in this company. So if he’s going down, I need to know so we can develop a strategy with the analysts.”

He turned to Mario. “You know we’ve called a press conference for two, which is the timing the PR consultant advised to mitigate damage to the share price before the closing bell. Mario, please, for your sake and the sake of the company, help us get this thing resolved.”

After a long silence Mario shrugged a reluctant agreement. From the folder we’d received from Latent Prints that morning, I laid out the photos and reports for the attorneys to see. “Our Latent Print technician matched Mario’s thumbprint on the envelope used to send the money to Nilo Engalla.”

“But they never took my fingerprints!” Mario protested to Sarkisian.

“Didn’t need to,” I said. “We had these.” I spread out the photographed fingerprints from the old letters Chuck had sent to Mario while he was in college as well as those taken from Mario’s bank statements and the letter from Belle Thornton to Chuck. “Your prints are on all three.”

Thor added: “All we have to do now is get a print from you to confirm our suspicions.”

“And there’s more.” I picked up the copies and walked back to my chair. “I think this letter that we found taped under a drawer in your desk is the real reason you’ve had a change of heart toward your father. Your thumbprint was on it, too.” I slid the plastic-encased letter from Belle to Zuccari across the table for Merritt to read. “Does this sound familiar, Mr. Merritt?”

Merritt leaned over to examine the letter. “I never saw the original, but it reads like the letter Chuck got from that nutcase last year.”

“She’s not a nutcase!” Mario protested.

“You know this woman?”

“The nutcase is Mario’s mother,” I said softly, sliding the photo of Mario, Belle, and Chuck across the table for Merritt to see. “He’s been visiting her and paying for her care for the last seven months, according to her nursing home. How long have you known she was alive, Mario?”

Mario fingered the photo, and swallowed hard to hold back the tears. “Since February. She called the office, told me about the private investigator tracking her down, and asked if we could meet. So I went to New Jersey, and she was able to explain a lot of what happened when I was little, before that second stroke paralyzed her.”

Merritt fell back in his chair. “Are you sure this isn’t some kind of hoax?” he asked faintly. “I was under the impression your mother died a long time ago.”

“So were a lot of people.” I proceeded to give the attorneys a rundown on the strange family history which the two men listened to quietly while Mario fumed. But when I got to Alma’s connection to the Zuccari’s first wife and son, Mario’s shoulders slumped and he moaned as if he’d been sucker punched. Obviously, Belle hadn’t shared this part of the story with her son.

When I was finished, Merritt groaned and lowered his head into his hands while Sarkisian just stared at his client in disbelief. “This is a disaster!” he muttered. “When news of this leaks out, the stock is going to drop like a rock!”

But Mario just stared, his gaze fixed on some distant shore none of us could see. I approached him again cautiously, aware that the interview could go sideways any minute. “Mario,” I began softly. “I don’t blame you for forging those payment authorizations to Sonrisa. You’d discovered how your family had sent your mother away. The money Johnson and Carruthers were kicking back to you was a small price for how your family ruined your life.”

Mario just stared, his head barely nodding.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you used the money to pay for your mother’s nursing home care.”

“My mother said them taking me away from her like that was as good as killing her,” he whispered. “She said her life was never the same after that.”

“Not another word!” Sarkisian shouted.

Merritt cleared his throat. “David’s telling you right, Mario.”

“I don’t care anymore,” Mario insisted, pushing away his statement. “Dad never told me he suspected Alma of infidelity. I heard that from Gabriella. I said that because I couldn’t think of any other reason Dad would have hired those two to do something so horrible. But now I get it-Dad wanted Alma and the baby dead. The sin he had committed was too much to bear.”

“You’re saying your father did hire them?”

He nodded. “They had a note in Dad’s handwriting, detailing his and Alma’s movements for the entire week, and highlighting the dinner arrangements at Ristorante Rex that night and what time they’d be leaving the restaurant. They waited a half block away from the restaurant until ten, the time Dad promised to have everyone outside.”

“Where’s this note now?”

“Leykis and Ybarra kept it for insurance purposes, they said.”

“Where would Leykis and Ybarra be now?”

“Where they always are on Mondays,” Mario replied. “At the hospital with my father and Alma.”

How’d it go?” Billie asked as we emerged from MIA’s office.

“Got him dead to rights on the embezzlement,” I replied, “but he wouldn’t cop to the conspiracy to murder charge. Swears his father was the one who contracted with Leykis and Ybarra. Claims there’s a letter in his father’s handwriting that spells it all out.”

“Who was the intended victim?” Billie asked.

“Mario thinks Alma. Why?”

“My interviews with the responding officers and the diagrams of the crime scene back up that theory. She and Zuccari were only a few feet apart when they fell. So, if Chuck Zuccari really did try to push her away when he saw the car coming, he didn’t do such a good job.”