Taunting (The Flint Files Book 1) Read online

  Clemons stood to speak. Before he could open his mouth Carol Talbot addressed the group.

  “Father Stewart is right. William’s death is the last straw for me. Let’s not stand on ceremony while one or more of us is a likely future victim of murder. I’ve lost too many dear friends to worry about the government taking my money. Steve, please send me a consent agreement tomorrow that protects my rights but also protects the lives of me and my friends.”

  Cries of “me, too” filled the hall. Clemons was beaten. He could procrastinate, he could equivocate, and he could even produce the most restrictive possible consent form. But, he was not going to win this one. His clients’ bank records would be opened to the police.

  Clemons was arrogant but not stupid. He knew that a close examination of their bank records would eventually provide the police with the first breadcrumb on a path that led straight to his door. He hadn’t killed anybody, but Steve Clemons wasn’t worried about murder. He was worried about multiple other felonies and finishing out his years in Angola Prison repeating “Yes, I’m your bitch” to a three hundred pound Aryan Nation cellmate.

  He needed just a little bit of time. “Father, may I address the group?” Stewart Swain was nothing if not civil. Of course Clemons could address the group, many of whom were his clients.

  “I am ethically bound to let you know about the consequences of your decision. I’m not trying to change your minds about allowing the government to snoop through your financial records. It’s just that I’m required to tell you what that decision means.” Clemons had little court room experience, but he could still tap dance pretty well.

  “Some of you have trusts and other ways set up to minimize taxes on your estates so that your heirs get the money instead of the government. Each of these is legal and I fully expect they will withstand any level of scrutiny the government can bring. Still, you’re giving the government a road map to where the money is and how it’s protected. Does anybody here think that the government does not want your money?” He paused for the expected laughter.

  “OK. The only real danger here is that the government might try to seize your money and ask your heirs to prove it legally belongs to them. Ultimately your heirs will prevail. Giving the government a head start on that fight might delay your heirs inheriting from you by a year to three years. That’s the only down-side. Do you still want to consent to the search?”

  Clemons had hoped his clients would ask for some time to think about it. Carol Talbot didn’t give them that time.

  “Yes. My sole heir is already well provided for. If he has to wait a year or so to collect the rest of the inheritance, well, he can live with that. Can’t you Joel?” She looked to Vanderveer, who smiled and agreed.

  “So, when can you have the consent form to me?” She was putting Clemons on the spot and further delays might arouse suspicion.

  “Is it OK if I get you the consent forms tomorrow afternoon? I’ve got some other business to attend to.” There were murmurs of assent. Clemons had lost the skirmish but won the battle. Just a few more steps and he will have won the war as well.

  “Of course, Carol. You’re right. Things will go a bit faster if I can get some help. Joel, can you help me with it this evening?” The weak point had always been the bank records, and it was time to cut the risk. Clemons knew that Joel Vanderveer was just not experienced enough to figure out the scam. Asking him to help with the consent form should at least keep that Talbot bitch off his case.

  When old man Fitch had died Clemons didn’t bring anyone else into the scheme. The capital fund had done exceedingly well, and the principal had never been touched. The earnings were another matter.

  The fund had done remarkably well. It initially invested in high-grade municipal bonds, but this wasn’t producing the kind of income its owners wanted. The fund’s first big investment had been in an obscure firm in upstate New York. IBM was considering a partnership and hired the estimable consulting firm Arthur D. Little to evaluate the potential of the company’s major product. ADL reported that the only real market was to replace carbon paper, and there wasn’t enough money in carbon paper to make it worthwhile. IBM passed on the deal, and the fund invested heavily. Xerox was a success.

  Old man Fitch was originally from nearby Arkansas. In 1970 he put $50,000 of the fund’s money into a startup run by a guy from Bentonville. He pulled half of it out in 1980 in a strategic change in investing. The $50K initial investment, with half of it pulled out in 1980, was alone worth more than $300 million today. Or would be if they still had it. The fund still owned about $10 million in WalMart stock, the rest had been siphoned off into offshore accounts owned jointly by Fitch and Clemons’s father.

  The strategic change had been brilliant. Investing in private companies could make millions. Investing in government could make billions. In the U.S. nobody can directly invest in government, but one can invest in politicians and their decisions. Bribing politicians was risky. They were far worse crooks than Fitch and Clemons ever thought about being. And they never kept their word.

  But their decisions could be predicted with some accuracy. So, in January 1980, the fund started selling gold futures. It had become evident that Jimmy Carter’s well-intended horribly-executed policies had driven the price of gold to stratospheric levels. Gold was a great hedge against inflation, then running at fourteen percent. If inflation dropped, so would the price of gold. Carter’s replacement had to bring down the inflation rate or the entire country would go bankrupt.

  With gold selling at nearly $900 an ounce, the fund peddled literally millions of ounces of gold futures, redeemable in January 1986 at $300 an ounce. People thought old man Fitch had gone off his rocker. Maybe he had, but he landed in a huge pile of money after the fall. The take was around a billion dollars. Some of it went into the principal account, more went into Fitch’s and Clemons’s pockets. The futures were thrown away when they came due. By then gold was trading at less than $120 an ounce.

  In 1993 the fund shorted health care stocks. The new President’s promise of universal healthcare was going to fall on its face, but not before the stock values rose. And then crashed. Whether Hillarycare was a good idea or not was immaterial. The money was going to be made on its failure.

  In 2001 the fund invested in defense consulting and services firms. Aerospace manufacturers were selling cheap because the commercial airlines were going to take a bath after 9/11. They would rebound, but the fund didn’t want to wait out a long dry spell. Providers of computer networks, private security services, strategy advice and a dozen other services started skyrocketing just before the fund got in. Clemons, Senior, wasn’t the only one to have figured this out. But, he got in early and made a mint.

  In 2010 the fund put a shit load of money into big Wall Street firms. The threat of severe restrictions on their moneymaking activities was palpable. Obama and company were going to put Main Street ahead of Wall Street. Clemons, Junior, (by then he was running the firm following Fitch’s death and his own father’s stroke) bet on a huge success. In achieving exactly the opposite results from those advertised.

  This one paid off enormously. The big banks cleaned up while the little ones were bought out for pennies on the dollar. Scouring Federal Election Commission records, the banks that had contributed heavily to Obama’s campaign were the obvious targets. Literally billions in profits flowed. And, some of that went into the fund’s principal account, a tiny piece of it went into distributions, and most of it wound up in Vanuatu.

  Clemons Senior had power of attorney for his partner, so when Fitch developed dementia the elder Clemons managed to skim off most of the old man’s fortune. Today, Clemons pere. was in a nursing home and a de facto vegetable. Now it was all Clemons fils’s. At fifty-four, he didn’t make anybody’s “Richest” list. The money was all hidden away. Steve Clemons, Jr, would have been the 48th richest person in America if anyone had known about his real worth. That was right at about $10 billion. Donald Trump was soo
oooo Second Tier.

  Clemons put Joel on the business of writing the consent form, which was really just first year law school busy work. By this time tomorrow it won’t matter what was in the document, it was time to take the money and run. At five p.m. on the nose he put in a call to the bank in Vanuatu. They agreed to transfer $20 million to his account in Venezuela through a cutout in Cuba. Or something. Clemons wasn’t too good with the details. The rest of the money would stay put outside the prying eyes of U.S. law enforcement.

  Second call was to his lawyer in Caracas. The small apartment would be readied for his arrival. Someone would meet his flight and assist in his rapid processing through customs.

  Third call was to US Airways. He reserved the six a.m. departure to Miami connecting with the 9:45 a.m. to Caracas. Just after noon tomorrow things would be looking up. Way up.

  “Good night, see you tomorrow.” Joel could lock up. And Clemons was on his way out of the country.

  Chapter Nine

  After the parishioners had filed out, Danny approached Father Stewart. “Rev, something you said the day of that mass stabbing rang a bell, but damned if I can remember what it was. I was hoping you could say again what you said that day.”

  The Reverend Swain thought for a minute. “Let’s see, you came in right as my meeting with the Aldermen was ending, right?” Danny nodded. “And, we had discussed the need to replace John Sherman on the Board. Is that right?”

  Thank God the good Reverend could remember stuff; Danny Flint couldn’t seem to remember shit these days.

  “You asked me about giving police protection to our older members. Is that it?” Swain was searching his memory.

  “Yeah, I asked again about that, but this was something else. I had just come from Millie Boatwright’s murder scene. It was gruesome.” Flint was hoping something, anything, would prompt Swain’s memory here.

  “OK. You told me that she and the other two had been stabbed in much the same way as the rest. And they had been left with the same photo on their bodies.” Father Stewart looked at Danny hopefully.

  “That’s it!” Danny started gesticulating. “The photos. You said something about the photos. What was it?”

  “Well, they clearly pointed to the church as the target. And they were cruel. Just like the killer was taunting us.” Swain watched the detective’s back as he rushed out the door.

  “Yes! Taunting.” Flint offered no other observations. Father Stewart Swain went back to his office to continue work on Sunday’s sermon.

  Danny threw open the commander’s office door without knocking. “Daryl, I need every one of the police reports on all of the murders. Patrol officers’ notes, 911 operators, detectives, crime scene guys, everything.” Danny had arrived in a rush and was ready to leave the same way.

  “Slow down, Danny.” Grzgorczyk was using his ‘you’re wound too tight, don’t make me unwind you’ voice. Danny slowed down.

  “What’s this all about?” Grzgorczyk trusted his deputy’s judgment, he just wanted some kind of clue here.

  “Father Swain said something earlier that caused a tickle in my mind. Taunting. The killer is taunting us. I saw that word in a report somewhere about one of the murders. This might be a dead end, but we’ve certainly traveled to plenty of those so far.”

  Lieutenant Grzgorczyk asked his secretary to assemble the files and put them on Danny Flint’s desk. The pile was three feet high. The first pile. The second pile was a couple inches shorter. This was going to take a while.

  Danny went through the files in reverse chronological order. The word had to be in one of the more recent files, after all. Otherwise, he wouldn’t remember it.

  The review was helpful since it gave Danny a perspective on everything they had. There were no autopsies and nothing from the prosecutor’s office. But, the detective knew it was in a police report. Somewhere. Six hours later he had it.

  Forrest Oxley had been the second victim. He was attacked at home in early November while cleaning up his garden for the winter. Just as with the others, there were no witnesses. Oxley’s friend, Irana Lambert, had just left. That was a shame. If she’d stayed Oxley and seven more people would have been saved, and the killer would either be in custody or dead. Lambert was an acknowledged master at some sort of Vietnamese martial arts thing.

  The killer had approached Oxley from the rear, reached around and stabbed him in the upper abdomen. He dropped Oxley to the ground and left the photo. The killer had not yet perfected his technique, so the wound wasn’t immediately fatal. Coupled with the unusual angle of the blade thrust, Oxley lived for about half an hour after the attack.

  His next door neighbor found Oxley when she used her standing invitation to go into the garden and forage for autumn vegetables. She was particularly fond of the Belgian endives, and Oxley always had more than he could use. She dropped her basket and rushed home to call 911.

  Officer Damion Wilson was the first on the scene. He found Oxley barely breathing and tried talking to him while waiting for the ambulance to arrive. Just before he expired Oxley had said what sounded like “taunting.” Nobody could figure it out.

  The detective called Wilson’s precinct. He was off for the day, would be on at eight the next morning. Danny left a message for Wilson’s Sergeant to have Wilson call him first thing in the morning. And please be ready to discuss his report about Oxley’s murder.

  It was after midnight by the time Danny arrived home. After his divorce he had rented a small apartment in the Marigny District. It was really an in-law addition to an old house. The place belonged to the owner of one of the many small theaters and cabarets that dotted the District. The whole area was kind of weird, huge old houses abutting ramshackle bars which competed for air with hole-in-the-wall theaters. Danny had lived there for ten years and it was home for him, at least for now. He had a private entrance, his own small kitchen and his very own bathroom to complement the cramped bedroom. He didn’t need much, which was fortunate. He didn’t have much.

  No sooner had he walked in the door when his phone rang. It was Cheryl and she wanted a booty call. The detective was too exhausted to play hide-the-salami half the night with the trauma nurse. She reminded him he was already eleven orgasms in the hole on his quota, and this would make it thirteen. So be it.

  Danny lay down on top of the covers, still fully dressed. Before he dropped into sleep a grin crossed his face. The idea of being thirteen orgasms in the hole evoked some very erotic images.

  Chapter Ten

  The next day Officer Wilson called Danny at eight on the nose. The detective had just stepped out of the shower and was getting ready for work, so he asked Wilson to hold on while he got pen and paper.

  Wilson described the whole scene, adding nothing new to what Detective Flint had gotten from Wilson’s and Brown’s reports. When Danny asked, Wilson said that the only word Oxley had said was “taunting.” Except, he put the accent on the last syllable. TaunTING. Neither policeman had a clue what it meant.

  The following day the bank records showed up. Danny called in a favor from a friend in the City Comptroller’s department. A forensic accountant was loaned to the High Profile Crimes squad to supervise the examination.

  Forty years of bank records for three hundred people is a massive data set. And, only those from the past fifteen years were fully computerized. The prosecutor’s office loaned a few interns and two accountants. Then Danny played his trump card.

  “Mike, it’s Danny.” Mike Allison had been working on another boring and repetitive Private Placement Memorandum. If Danny wanted to discuss strategies for checkers, he was all for it. But Danny’s calls were always a hell of a lot more interesting than checkers games.

  “Yeah, Danny, what can I do for you?” Mike was still trying to refocus his brain and eyes from the mind-numbing work of writing a PPM. He had automated pieces of it, but that could lead to errors that would get him fired and, worse, ruin his reputation. So, he slogged his way through them.
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  Danny explained what he needed. Yes, Mike was on contract to the police force to provide interviewing and interrogation training. Sure, there was an “other services as appropriate” clause in the contract. He’d be right over.

  It took Mike ten minutes to figure out what he needed to get started. Juanita Lautrec could put together a quick and dirty data set in less than an hour. She had been doing IT stuff for two decades. Juanita could put it together fast, but it wouldn’t be done right.

  “Mr. Allison, this is only going to let you see deposits and withdrawal amounts, not their sources or destinations. And putting it into a spreadsheet is for amateurs. I can get an off-the-shelf analysis tool installed and working by tomorrow afternoon.

  “Not only that, but this is six different banking software packages from thirteen different banks. I should build interfaces to translate into a single system, then this will be easier. Are you sure you want me spending my time on this little side project of yours?” Mike was sure.