The Call of the Mild

Chapter Twenty-Five

When Shawn was little, Henry had a recurring fantasy that one day the two of them would partner up on the Santa Barbara Police Department. There wasn’t much of a chance it would ever happen, of course. The department had strict rules against relatives working closely together. But there was nothing that made Henry happier than imagining himself and Shawn, father and son, cracking case after case together.

Then Shawn started to talk, and Henry gave up on the fantasy. But sitting in the generic accounting office that served as the mailing address for the Fluffy Foundation and watching Officer Rasmussen interview the skinny little dweeb who administered the charity, Henry felt those old feelings stirring for the first time in decades.

This is what he had always dreamed of, the relationship he’d thought possible only with blood kin. The dance between partners who could coordinate their strategy without a word. Rasmussen ran the interrogation, but Henry was able to direct him with nothing more than the slightest of looks. It was like telepathy-the real thing, not the phony version Shawn practiced.

Within minutes of their arrival in the one-man office nestled between a convenience store and a Laundromat in a down-market strip mall, Rasmussen started getting the information they needed. The Fluffy Foundation had been in operation for five years, and while it had recently begun to attract some new donors, almost all its money came from the anonymous angel who had set up the fund. That person had started the charity with a donation of fifty thousand dollars, and similar amounts came in at irregular intervals. The dweeb had been alerted to expect another gift shortly.

This sent Henry’s internal radar tingling. If Ellen Svaco was indeed the anonymous donor behind the foundation, there was no trace of it in any of her financial records. And if she was about to have fifty thousand untraceable dollars to give away, that would have given someone fifty thousand good reasons to kill her. Their entire case could depend on the answer to Rasmussen’s next question: Who is the anonymous donor?

Henry gave Rasmussen the nod, and the officer sat forward in his chair. “It’s very important that you tell us the identity of your donor.”

The dweeb pushed his horn-rims up the bridge of his nose with the tip of a pencil and cleared his throat nervously. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that,” he said.

“Not even if I told you it was a matter of life and death?” Rasmussen said.

“Not without a court order,” the dweeb said. “I’m just not at liberty to divulge that information.”

Rasmussen hesitated for a moment, then got up. “Thank you for your time,” he said. “We’ll come back when we have a warrant.”

It took Henry a couple of seconds to realize that Rasmussen was actually walking towards the door. Henry leaped up out of his chair and grabbed the officer before he could reach the knob. “What are you doing?” he whispered furiously.

“ ‘If the law doesn’t respect the law, then no one will,’ ” Rasmussen said proudly. “ ‘The police officer must act with complete fidelity to the rules, or the force is nothing but a mob.’ You taught me all that.”

If Henry had had more hair, he would have pulled it out. For a moment he considered pulling out Rasmussen’s. Instead he moved the officer back towards the dweeb’s desk.

“I’m thrilled you remember my lessons so well,” Henry said. “But that was a classroom situation. This is real life.”

“ ‘If our principles can’t stand up in the face of an adverse reality, they aren’t principles, they’re just whims,’ ” Rasmussen said. “I’ve lived my life by that.”

“And I’m really flattered,” Henry said. “But you might want to cover your ears right now.”

“Why?”

Henry marched up to the dweeb and pounded his fist on the desk. “Listen, pal,” he barked, “we’ve got reason to believe this entire charity is a front set up to launder drug money. And that makes you a kingpin. So unless you want to spend the rest of your pathetic life in supermax, you will give us the name of your donor.”

The dweeb looked like he was about to cry. Rasmussen rushed up to the desk. “That’s not exactly true,” he said. “What Detective Spencer means-”

“-is that you’ll be lucky to get life,” Henry said. “If we find evidence that some of this drug money is going to support terrorists, we’ll go for the death penalty.”

“It’s not drug money!” the dweeb said feebly.

“We do know that,” Rasmussen said.

Henry pushed him out of the way and pounded on the table. “The name! It’s Svaco, isn’t it?”

The dweeb gulped so hard his Adam’s apple nearly tore through his throat. “Yes, the donor’s name is Svaco.”

Henry turned to Rasmussen and gave him a tight smile. “Here’s one I probably forgot to mention in class: Make the case first; make it pretty later.”

“It’s no good,” Rasmussen said. “We can’t use that information. It’s tainted.”

“Except we’re not putting Ellen Svaco on trial,” Henry said. “We’re trying to solve her murder. And this man has just given us the vital clue we need.”

He patted Rasmussen on the shoulder and stalked to the door. Rasmussen stayed at the desk and handed the dweeb a business card. “Thank you so much for your cooperation. I assure you, we will arrange for a warrant so that you will not have violated your fiduciary duty to your client. Do you have any questions?”

“Yes. One,” the dweeb said. “Did he say, ‘Ellen’?”

“Yes, Ellen Svaco, your donor,” Rasmussen said.

“I don’t know who that is,” the dweeb said. “The foundation’s principal donor is Arnold Svaco. That’s the only Svaco I know.”