Simply Lies, page 23
She sent it off not expecting to hear anything back, at least not for a while.
But it was only seconds later when the email dropped into her inbox.
Can we talk?
He had left a phone number. She immediately called it.
The man confirmed he was Dexter Tremayne.
“I started doing this registered agent crap about two years ago,” he said. “Used to be a truck driver. Unhealthiest job there is except maybe for coal mining. Anyway, I live on disability and Social Security and what I earn as an agent. My cousin got me onto it. I’ve only got fifteen hundred companies right now. He’s got nearly thirty thousand. He has spreadsheets and state filing software and credit cards on file for autopay so he doesn’t get stiffed. Runs smooth as silk. And he’s printing money. That’s my goal. To beat him. Got a lot of catching up to do.”
“I understand. But why did you want to talk?” asked Gibson.
“I never met anyone from none of the companies I’m an agent for. Not a single one. I remember I got an email from a lawyer once, but he didn’t say much. Have no idea who owns any of this shit. My cousin thinks he’s got one of them Mexican cartel boys on his roster. Maybe I got me one, too,” he added eagerly.
“Okay. But—”
“Wouldn’t that be something? Me representing him, so to speak.”
“Yeah, really something to tell the grandkids,” noted Gibson, trying hard to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
“Now let me get to the point. Like I said, I never met or heard from any of the owners, until this fellow Daniel Pottinger called me up one day. Out of the blue. Could’a knocked me over with a stick.”
“How do you know it was him?”
“He said it was. And why else would he be calling me?”
Gibson could think of a few reasons but said, “What did he want?”
“He wanted to tell me something. And I’m going to tell you.”
“Why tell me?” said an instantly suspicious Gibson.
“He’s dead, right? I saw that on the news. Pottinger was killed in, was it West Virginia?”
“Close enough. But he’s dead, yes. Someone killed him.”
“Well, he said, if anyone contacted me after he was dead, I was to tell them what he told me to tell them.”
Gibson sat up straighter and took up a pen. “And what was that, exactly?”
“He told me to tell the person, ‘Now you see it, but then you don’t.’ Seemed kinda stupid to me, but there you go.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact, he did.”
“What?”
“He said, ‘Then tell ’em to take away the eight.’ ”
“ ‘Take away the eight’?”
“That’s right. The eight. Those were his exact words. He had me write them down.”
“What’s the eight? And take it away from what?”
“I don’t know what to tell you, ma’am. That’s what he said.”
“Anything else?”
“Yep, then he said for whoever to ‘use the leftovers for Sesame Street.’ ”
“ ‘The leftovers for Sesame Street’?”
“Those were his exact words. God’s honest truth.”
“Is that it?”
“Yep. Ain’t that enough?” he added, with a chuckle.
Gibson thanked him and clicked off.
What in the hell?
GIBSON SAT THERE FOR A bit after ending the call. Langhorne seemed to really be having fun with all of this from-the-grave crap. The man’s first cryptic message had been “Look harder. It’s worth it.” And now this.
She had a sudden thought. Had he written the phrase Do as I say, not as I do on the wall of the room where he’d died? Perhaps writing with one hand and then the other to make it look like two people had done it? No, that probably couldn’t be. The same phrase had shown up at Oxblood’s home, after Langhorne was dead.
Gibson looked at the words again that she had written in her notebook: Now you see it, but then you don’t.
It felt off to her somehow. She looked it up online.
The common phrase actually was: “Now you see it, now you don’t.” Although she found other references that had it as “Now you see them, now you don’t.” But the origin seemed clear: It referred to a magician’s trickery and sleight of hand. You wanted to hide something, so you did something interesting with one hand to get the audience’s attention, while you secreted what you really wanted to hide with the other hand while people weren’t looking. And then what did it mean to take away the eight? What eight, and from what was it supposed to be taken away? And then Sesame Street with the leftovers?
Trickery and deceit and hiding shit. Langhorne had definitely chosen the right phrase to use.
But then her spine stiffened. This is what you do for a living. And you got to Tremayne and he told you what Langhorne wanted him to tell. That was more than you knew five minutes ago.
Which is why Clarisse picked you in the first place.
What Gibson still didn’t get was that if she got there first, Clarisse wouldn’t see a penny. So why bring her on if Clarisse could just find the stuff on her own? There was another thing. Gibson wasn’t sure she would share this information with Sullivan, either, because her cop radar was telling her there was something off about the man.
So what is your goal here, Mick?
She looked around the modest room in the modest home she lived in. Two kids, no husband. Her working life would be a non-stop grind until the kids were grown and off to college or wherever their lives were going to take them.
But what if you found the treasure? College funds taken care of. Helping her parents. Another house in a nicer neighborhood, not having to juggle a million things at the same time. Having a life. All of that could be accomplished with . . .
Gibson stared into the screen at her reflection, suddenly unsure of who she was seeing there.
You’re getting into dangerous territory, lady. You were a cop, for God’s sake. An honest one. And you don’t want that asshole’s blood money.
Her phone rang, jarring her out of these disturbing thoughts. It was Wilson Sullivan.
“Prints came back on Daryl Oxblood. FBI has already called.”
“Let me guess. They got pinged on the database search because Oxblood was WITSEC?”
“Yep. In fact, his whole family was. His name was Bruce Hall. His father, Tony, was a midlevel enforcer for a mob boss in New York City. Turned informant and got put in the program with his wife and son.”
“So how did the mother and son end up in The Plains, Virginia?”
“Tony Hall had a heart attack and died. Bruce and his mother opted out of the program after that and literally disappeared. No word from them since.”
“Where were they located when they were in the program?”
“That I don’t know. FYI, I got a call from an FBI Special Agent Cary Pinker. He’s coming in from DC to talk to me about the case.”
“Any idea why?”
“Nope. But just so you know, I did tell him about you.”
Gibson said, “Okay, what are the odds of my sitting in on the meeting with him?”
“Zero and nada.”
“Just thought I’d give it a shot.”
“Yeah, I would have, too.”
“Can you let me know what he says?”
“Within professional boundaries, yes.”
“Thanks.”
She clicked off and looked down at her hands. He was holding back. And she was holding back. And Gibson wasn’t sure where that would get either of them.
But you’ve been taking your own tack on this. And he knows nothing about Clarisse, or Langhorne’s cryptic message left with his registered agent in South Dakota. So just keep pushing.
She picked up the phone and called Earl Beckett. She told him about Daryl Oxblood’s being Bruce Hall.
“Jesus,” he exclaimed. “So he’s dead, too? We didn’t get an alert from the FBI yet.”
“And we think there’s a connection between his death and Harry Langhorne’s.”
“What kind of connection?”
“You tell me. Where were the Halls located when they were in WITSEC?”
“I don’t know that offhand.”
“Can you find out?”
“I could. But I’m not sure I can tell you.”
“Why not? They’re not in WITSEC any longer and they’re all dead.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“You told us about Langhorne.”
“I told you when you were with Detective Sullivan. But on your own you’re just a civilian. And as a rule the Marshals Service doesn’t talk about WITSEC without serious justification.”
“Two people’s being murdered seems like justification enough for me. And all I want to know are two things: Was Bruce Hall his WITSEC name or his real name? And where were they located when they were in the program? That’s it.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Beckett.
“And were you able to find handwriting samples for Francine and Doug Langhorne?”
But Beckett had already hung up.
She sat back and fiddled with her pen. Okay, he’s clearly not getting back to me.
So who had the motive to kill Bruce Hall? Clarisse?
But why, if she and Julia Frazier were one and the same, would she go back to the scene of the crime? She had tried to erase the phrase on the wall, for sure. And she had looked at the comic book that Gibson now had. She was probably regretting that she hadn’t simply taken it.
But according to the neighbor Barbara Cole, Frazier had seemed shocked by the discovery of the body. And she had told Cole to call the police before hightailing it out of town.
If not her, then maybe Francine—if Clarisse wasn’t her—and/or Doug Langhorne had killed Hall. They could have also killed their father. Although Clarisse hadn’t said so, it might have been Doug visiting Langhorne shortly before he was killed, with Francine waiting for him in the car.
She thought it too improbable that former WITSEC members would just run into each other. But why kill Hall? Was he looking for the treasure, too? Did he know something, and Doug and Francine had tracked him down and silenced him after getting that information?
Or was there another reason?
TWO A.M. AND SLEEP WOULD not come for Gibson; she was exhausted, but her mind would not turn off. She figured she and about eighty million other stressed-out Americans were wandering around their houses right now trying to get their shit straight and then go back to bed, with limited success.
She had already checked on the kids. Sleep came easily for them. Then they woke and proceeded to race a million miles an hour until collapsing from sheer exhaustion.
I wish I still had the energy to do that. But then again, they have nothing to worry about. That’s my department. I have everything to worry about.
She walked to her office and settled in front of her computers.
Gibson had been searching for some lead on Pottinger and been mostly disappointed. The only thing she had really scored was the clue that Dexter Tremayne had provided her. But it wasn’t much, because she had no context with which to figure it out.
She loaded in her search and the screen started filling up with all things Harry Langhorne.
Born in the town of Yarden in upstate New York in a modest home in a working-class neighborhood, died near Smithfield, Virginia, in an empty mansion. His family had moved to New Jersey before he was five. He’d gone to public schools there and then attended college at Pace in New York City. He’d gotten his accounting degree, and then obtained his CPA license. Then he’d gone to work for the Giordanos. He had married Geraldine, and later they’d had Francine and Douglas.
She read another article about Ida Giordano’s being Langhorne’s mother and the sister of Leo Giordano, which her father had already told her. That had been the portal, the article had reported, to Langhorne’s becoming a mob accountant.
And Langhorne’s father, Joel Langhorne, had been one of Giordano’s muscle, probably something also connected to his marriage to Ida. Hell, it was probably the reason he had gotten permission to marry Ida, Gibson thought. The mob was not known to encourage outsiders coming into the fold.
You marry one of us, you become one of us, Gibson reasoned.
Joel Langhorne had been killed in a shoot-out with police when Harry had still been in grade school. Gibson wondered if that had changed Harry, made him willing and eager to go over to the dark side. The Giordano family had also taken care of the Langhornes after Joel’s death. That had probably endeared Harry to them as well.
Langhorne, by the accounts she could find, had been damn good at his job. The books he maintained evaded all attempts by legal authorities to get to the Giordano family, and others.
Now Gibson asked herself something she should have thought of before.
Why had Langhorne agreed to help the Feds take down the Giordano crime family, if they had taken care of him after his father’s death? If they couldn’t get the evidence because he was so good at being the mob’s accountant, what had happened to make him turn on the hand that fed and protected him and his family?
Art Collin had told her that his undercover work had nailed Langhorne to the wall, forcing him to turn on the Giordanos to save his own ass. But was that really the case? Langhorne struck her as a guy three steps ahead of everyone else. And while Art Collin might have been good at his job, it all seemed too neat and clean. Then something occurred to her which might explain that.
What if Langhorne wanted to be caught and then “turned”? And why might he want that? The reason was obvious. Money. He had ripped off the Giordano family. Sooner or later they would knock on his door and kill him. But if he helped the government take them down? He would get federal protection and years to effectively hide what he had stolen. Then he would do what he eventually did: disappear and take that fortune with him, and safely live in the lap of luxury for the rest of his days.
This revelation was so startling that Gibson had to sit there for a few minutes and probe it from all sides to see if it held up. And it did. But she wanted to make sure that her theory was correct.
But to find the treasure, she needed to know even more about Langhorne.
Gibson searched article after article from back then, until one, buried deep in the pages of the Newark Star-Ledger, fully captured her attention.
She read it twice and then sat back.
Shit, really? Why had no one mentioned this to me before? Why hadn’t Beckett—
And then the answer came to her. That was part of the deal. Langhorne brought the mob down, and his own dirty laundry—and this story was explicit about what that dirty laundry might be—would be forgiven. And that was probably the other reason he had turned on the Giordanos. Not just to get the money, but to keep from going to prison over . . . this.
I guess they did things differently back then. Or maybe they still do today, but nobody ever hears about it.
She searched for any other articles that spoke to this same subject matter, but found zip. That was curious in and of itself, she thought. Then the reason occurred to her. The Feds had put the lid on this. If it had been widely published, the mob’s lawyers could possibly have used that in their client’s defense.
She emailed the article to Art Collin.
Gibson wanted his take on what this reporter had alleged.
She also Googled the reporter who had written the article, Samantha Kember.
Well, Gibson wouldn’t be speaking with Kember. She’d died of cancer fifteen years back.
Hopefully, Art Collin would have some information for her.
Gibson also left an email with Jan Roberts, a reporter now with the Star-Ledger whom she had come to know during her time as a detective back in Jersey City when Roberts worked for the local paper there.
She went back to her earlier searches on Langhorne’s upbringing.
Joel Langhorne sounded like your typical street enforcer: brutal, sadistic, hard-drinking, and loyal only to the capos above him. His wife, Ida Giordano, seemed to have been totally all in with her mob family. She had nearly gone to prison when her son had turned rat. She doubted that had made the woman love him more. She had died twenty years ago in a state-run nursing home. Langhorne had had no brothers and sisters. He was it for the Langhorne line.
Except for Doug Langhorne.
She looked at what she knew about Langhorne’s wife, Geraldine. She had been born in the south, but her family had moved to New York when she was in her early teens. She had met Langhorne there and they had married. Now her husband was dead, and no one knew where Geraldine was. Probably dead, too.
Gibson closed her eyes and slumped in her chair. She had waffled back and forth over this case from the start. Do I work it? Do I run from it? Now she was doubting herself again.
This shit is so complicated it’ll take you the rest of your life to figure it out, and even that probably wouldn’t be long enough. Here you are dreaming about impossible wealth dropping into your lap. Hello, it is not going to happen. So why don’t you just leave this to the cops? And now the FBI? And then you can go back to being a computer nerd for ProEye. Nothing dangerous, just nice, steady work.
She ceremoniously turned off her computer and then hurried downstairs. Gibson had remembered she had forgotten to set the house alarm.
She walked over to the panel to do so.
And that was the last thing Gibson remembered.
GIBSON CAME TO SLOWLY, AND then, with a jerk of her head, she was fully awake and looking wildly around, but seeing only darkness.
She blinked when a light hit her in the eyes. She tried to shield her face but her hands wouldn’t move. They were bound to the chair she was sitting in. So were her legs.
Her heart thumping in her ears, she tugged against her bindings and said, “Who are you? Where am I? What are you doing?”
It sounded lame, like lines from a bad movie. But what else was she supposed to say?
The light dipped so it was no longer in her eyes.
