Steve Martini - The Enemy Inside

He looks at me over his drink, chuckles a little, and says, “She had her moments.”

“What did she do before she came to the firm?”

“Legislative staff.” He takes a sip, Jim Beam over ice. Like a deposition, he offers nothing more.

“What did she do there?”

“Worked for the Senate Finance Committee. Later I think, if I remember right, she went to Senate Banking. She seemed to have a good head for figures. And a photographic memory. Everything she read she retained instantly,” he says. “A mind like a steel trap.”

“The way you say it, makes it sound like perhaps you got caught in it?” I smile at him.

“No. No. On the contrary, we got along very well. In fact, I was the one who put her up for partner,” he says.

“How long ago was that?”

“Two years,” he says. “And there was no opposition. Everyone agreed she deserved it. She lived for the firm.”

“No family life?”

He shakes his head. “Lived alone, I believe.”

“Did she have many friends?”

“Oh, she belonged to her share of organizations. Women’s groups mostly. Professional associations. So I’m sure she had friends.”

“But you didn’t know any of them?”

“No. We weren’t that close. Not socially,” he says.

“I’m told she had a boyfriend at one time.”

This gets his interest. “Really?” he says. “Where did you hear that?”

“I don’t remember,” I tell him. “But somebody I was talking to mentioned it.”

“Emm.” He sits there waiting for me to offer more. When I don’t, he says, “Do you remember the guy’s name?”

“What guy?” Two can play this game.

“The boyfriend,” he says.

“Oh, that. It was a while back. Betz, I think was the name. Yeah, Rubin Betz.”

If he recognizes it, he doesn’t show it.

“Do you know what she did before she was on congressional staff?” I ask him.

He shakes his head. “No. That’s going back a ways. Before my time.”

“I doubt that,” I tell him.

“What I mean to say is that was some years before I met her.”

“I see.”

I am beginning to think that we have exhausted all the topics when suddenly he looks up at me and says, “Do you know whether they knew each other?”

“Who?”

“Your client and my partner,” says Proffit. “Had they ever met, before the accident, I mean?”

“I don’t think so. What would make you think that?”

“I don’t know, I’m just wondering,” he says. “They ran in the same circles. Washington politics. Maybe they knew each other.”

Suddenly it hits me. What Proffit is concerned about is the chance that Ives and Serna might have been meeting at some remote location so that she could feed him information on something. Maybe she was one of his sources. I begin to wonder if Ives has been straight with me.

“I’ll have to ask him,” I say.

“I’d be curious,” says Proffit.

I’ll bet he would.

“Do you know what your client was doing way out there?”

“You mean where the accident happened?”

“Yeah.”

“Says he can’t remember,” I tell him.

“Really? Musta been one hell of a collision.”

“It was.”

“What about her? Do the police know why Olinda was out there?”

“If they do, they haven’t shared it with me,” I tell him. “Do you know?” I turn it on him.

He shakes his head vigorously.

“What was she doing in California?” I ask.

“We’re not sure,” he says.

“So she wasn’t there on business?”

“It’s possible,” he says. “She pretty much ran her own operation. From the firm, I mean.”

“So she didn’t have to clear travel with anyone?”

“No.”

“What about her calendar?” I ask. I look at him and realize from his expression that this is getting too close to the corporate bone. No doubt if I subpoenaed her calendar, Proffit’s firm would object on grounds of attorney-client privilege.

“I’m not sure. I’d have to look,” he says. “Funny thing about Olinda. I don’t think she used a calendar much. Kept everything pretty much in her head.”

I’m getting the sense that if there was anything on a calendar, Proffit’s probably going to go home and burn it.

“I take it she didn’t have any family in that area?”

“Not that we know of,” he says. “We’re still checking. How did your other meeting go?” He slips it in without missing a beat.

“Oh, fine. Fine,” I tell him.

“It’s good you were able to get so much accomplished on one trip,” he says.

“Yes.”

“I hope Mr. Graves was able to help you.”

I look at him, son of a bitch! “How did you know who I was meeting with?”

“In this town,” he says, “it’s impossible to keep anything secret.”

I sit there looking at him, wondering if he had Graves’s office bugged.

Early the next morning, on the flight home, I settle back into my seat, close my eyes, and drift into that netherworld between consciousness and sleep. The pulse of the jet engines drowns out the idle chatter around me as I think about Graves and his silly parables. The ham-handed antics in the hallway with the German business card. He must think I’m some rube.

He has what we need. He admitted as much. His copy of the document he prepared for Arthur Haze with all the details of the story they’re working on. The item he copyrighted in order to secure the loan. It was probably tucked into one of the filing cabinets in his office as we sat there talking.

But Graves is no fool. You can bet it’s not there this morning. It would be too easy to roll into his shop with a subpoena and grab it before he or Haze could act to stop us. He would have moved it by now. Why couldn’t the man make it easy on all of us and just tell me?

After talking to Graves, I’m convinced that we already know almost everything there is to know. His statements to me to the contrary, I believe, were bravado, an attempt to cover for the fact that Alex had already lifted the curtain on his show. What else could Graves say? Then you really don’t know anything, do you? Nice try. I think the only thing we’re missing are the details. But then, of course, the devil always lives there. What we need is a name, dates, account numbers, and perhaps a few other hard verifiable facts that we can present to a court.

Serna was blackmailing somebody. Of that I am certain. Whoever it was either killed her or had someone else do it. From what Alex told us, it was probably some powerful pol in Washington who had an offshore numbered account. How much is in it or where the money came from is anyone’s guess. But if I had to, I would say that it’s not their failure to pay taxes that is the problem. God knows that enough appointed and elected officials have “forgotten” to pay tax on earnings they made overseas in recent years and have received nothing but a slap on the wrist from the IRS, collection of back taxes, and payment of a penalty at most.

But what if the source of the funds is a foreign bribe? That’s an entirely different kettle of fish. With the IRS and Treasury stomping around in the weeds looking for American taxpayers hiding money overseas, a high-profile politician with a hidden slush fund in a Swiss bank would be in a highly agitated state.

Somehow Serna found out. Perhaps she was given the information by the whistleblower, Betz, before he went into the slammer. That would make sense. The reason they couldn’t kill Betz was because he had something buried, insurance against accidental death, information that kept him breathing. But it wasn’t enough to keep him out of prison. He tried to cut a deal with the feds, and they weren’t buying. I make a mental note to find out when he was sentenced, where he’s serving his time, and to check for any news stories surrounding his trial. Whoever Serna was extorting killed her. This makes perfect sense.