Simply Lies, page 10
“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.”
EARL BECKETT LOOKED LIKE A US marshal, thought Gibson. Tall, lean, ramrod straight. Weathered good looks, wavy salt-and-pepper hair. A grim smile coupled with flinty eyes and a crushing handshake. Gibson thought that in another era, the man could have walked on to an old movie set and been an instant star, especially if he’d had on a ten-gallon hat and was sporting twin pearl-handled Colt .45s.
After Sullivan had introduced her, Beckett led them to his office in the federal building in Norfolk and sat down across from them. He had a manila folder in front of him.
“Had to get this sucker overnighted. It was in the record morgue, in yonder parts.” He smiled. “ ‘Yonder parts’ are what folks expect to hear from a US marshal, or maybe I’m just getting old.”
“Works for me,” said Sullivan.
Beckett opened the folder and got down to business. “Harry E. Langhorne. A name right out of the past.”
“Yeah, and he’s in our morgue,” said Sullivan.
“So you told me over the phone.”
“Then he was in WITSEC?” asked Sullivan.
Beckett slid a finger over his top lip. “You confirmed the dead guy is Langhorne?”
“Yes. We checked and rechecked. And the FBI sent us a notification as well.”
“Right. All WITSECs are on their database. And if any law enforcement agency sends a print ID request that ends up being a WITSEC, the Bureau gets pinged. They usually let us know, too. They may have, but I’m not necessarily in the loop on that.”
Gibson inwardly cringed. Thank God my cop friend Kate didn’t have to access a Fed database but got Langhorne’s print off a local one.
Beckett said, “Okay, yeah, he was under our protection starting around the time of the mob trials.”
“With his family?” asked Gibson.
“That’s right. His wife, Geraldine, and the two kids.” Beckett took a few moments to read over the file. “They were initially relocated to Eugene, Oregon, about as far away as you can get from New Jersey. Then to Butte, Montana, and finally to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they spent a number of years.”
“Why so many moves?” asked Gibson.
“Not unusual at all. Might have been they suspected someone had found out where they were. Or there was a problem of some kind with the current location. We always err on the side of caution.”
“What’s the process for a WITSEC family?” asked Gibson.
“We determine how many members will be entering the program, adults, children. Then they’re all given a psych evaluation.”
“Why a psych eval?” asked Gibson.
“The transition is not an easy one,” noted Beckett. “So we need to know what mental state they’re all in. You don’t enter WITSEC because your life is a bed of roses, quite the opposite. The program will support them for six months financially. After that, they need to get a job. Now, we do cater to certain requests if feasible.”
“Like what?” she asked.
“Well, I can tell you that we’ve paid for breast implants, facelifts, and boxing lessons, but that’s atypical.”
“O-kay,” said Gibson slowly.
“The jobs these folks get are usually not going to be high paying. They have no work or credit history. Early on the Marshals Service reached out to the business community and got commitments from over a thousand national businesses to provide jobs to WITSEC members. In the past, we’ve also placed protectees in certain government jobs.”
“Doesn’t that jeopardize their safety?” asked Sullivan.
“We have protocols to prevent that, but I can’t get into them with you. Langhorne was working at a local car dealership in Albuquerque until about twenty years ago.”
“As a salesman?” asked Sullivan.
“No, as a vehicle detailer. Guy liked the details, apparently.”
“A long fall from mob accountant to cleaning cars,” remarked Gibson.
“What happened?” asked Sullivan.
“Langhorne vanished.”
Gibson and Sullivan exchanged glances. She said, “Vanished? Alone, or with his family?”
“Alone. After all those years, maybe he didn’t appreciate the lifestyle or the working-class life that came with it. Or the family he had.”
“Damn,” said Gibson.
“I always thought the guy was odd.”
“Wait, you knew him?” exclaimed Gibson.
Beckett nodded. “That’s why I agreed to meet. See, I was in Albuquerque at the tail end of Langhorne’s time there. Did several years with him and his family and some other families out there in WITSEC. Don’t tell anybody, but we sometimes clump them together in the same neighborhoods to conserve manpower. None of the families knew the others were in WITSEC, of course.” He eyed Gibson. “Will told me you were a cop for a while and now work for ProEye. Said I could trust you.”
“You can. What names did they go by back then?”
“They’re no longer in WITSEC, so I guess it won’t hurt to tell you.” He glanced at the file again. “Harry and Geraldine Parker. The kids went by Fran and Doug.”
“But those are their actual first names,” Gibson pointed out.
“Way we do it at WITSEC. Theory is people will not be able to get the memory of their true given name out of their brain. Someone calls out Harry and Harry turns. But if the first names are the same, so what? Last names are different, of course.”
“Do you change their appearances?” asked Gibson. “Especially if their faces had been in the media?”
“On a case-by-case basis, we do what we need to do to keep them safe,” said Beckett. “And that’s really all I can say.”
“So he just left his family?” said Sullivan. “You’re sure nothing happened to him?”
“We’re sure. I think he’d been prepping it for quite a while. This was in hindsight, of course. And he might have had a stash of money to help him on his way.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Sullivan.
“Rumors. Scuttlebutt.”
“Maybe in addition to ratting out the mob he might’ve raided their piggybank, too,” said Gibson.
Beckett shrugged. “The man had helped take down a bunch of really bad guys. You’re not gonna jump the dude’s bones over money at that point. And if they made him out to be dishonest that way, maybe it would have hurt the prosecution. You give a good defense attorney an opening, well, look out.”
“Right,” said Gibson. “Well, the man he became, Daniel Pottinger, paid five million dollars in cash for an old estate near Smithfield.”
“Damn” was all Beckett said to that.
“You said he vanished. How so?” asked Sullivan.
“Went to his job one day and never came home. We checked everything, talked to everybody. He went out for lunch, the folks at the dealership said, and then called in that he was feeling ill, so they didn’t expect him back. That was the last they saw or heard of him. We checked the buses, trains, airports, car rentals. Nothing.”
“So maybe he had help?” noted Gibson.
“I have no doubt of that. But he worked it so he had a good head start. His wife didn’t contact us until the following morning.”
“Why so long?” asked Gibson.
“She said that Langhorne had phoned and told her he was working late and not to wait up for him. He said he’d probably sleep on the couch downstairs, so as not to wake her. She went downstairs around eight the next morning and there was no sign of him. But she thought he’d just gone to work early. She didn’t call us until the dealership phoned her asking where the hell he was. All told, he had a long runway to make his getaway. And, look, it’s not like what he did was illegal. Being in WITSEC is a choice. We looked for him mainly because we were worried someone had snatched him. But as more information came out, it seemed clear that he planned it.”
“And his family? What happened to them? You said they were no longer in WITSEC.”
“Geraldine walked out of her house about a month after her husband vanished. No one’s seen her since.”
Gibson said, “And the kids?”
“Doug was nearly eighteen by then, a senior in high school. Francine was about a year younger. Not little kids anymore. It was a helluva mess. Technically, they couldn’t opt out of WITSEC until they were eighteen. And we, of course, couldn’t inform their extended family about the situation so they could help or make decisions for them. And traditional foster care was out, so we just kept watch over them. Doug hung around until Francine hit her eighteenth birthday, and then they both opted out and moved on. Haven’t seen or heard from them since.”
