Jeffery Deaver - Edge

His comments had been spoken loudly enough for Joanne to hear and I decided he was apologizing to her too, indirectly.

I said, “I know you think this is a mistake but on the off chance it isn’t, I want to find who hired Loving.”

“The primary,” he said. “I overheard you. That’s what you call them?”

“Right.”

“At first, I was thinking it was all bullshit. But after what happened at the house… I mean, it doesn’t make sense that anybody’d go to that kind of trouble if they didn’t think I knew something.”

“No, not Henry Loving,” I said. Then I explained that we always try to get to the primary. “We do that, and arrest him, then usually we get information that leads to the lifter. Or the lifter will just vanish, since their only interest is getting paid. With the primary in custody, the lifter isn’t going to be collecting the balance of his fee. He just takes off.”

“There’re only two major cases I’ve got at the moment.”

That was all? I wondered, surprised. A cop of his age and experience, in a city like D.C., would normally be inundated with open case files. I asked, “Give me the details. I’ll have somebody check them out. Carefully. They won’t disrupt your investigation.”

“But I must’ve collared a hundred perps in my day. No, more. It might be revenge.”

I was shaking my head. “I don’t think so.”

“Why?”

“For one thing he doesn’t want to clip you. He wants information. Besides, you worked street crime.”

“Yeah.”

“How often was revenge a motive? And who was behind it?”

Ryan considered this. “Only a dozen times. Usually jealous lovers or a gangbanger after another one for diming him out. You’re right, Corte, nothing like this.”

“Tell me about the cases.”

The first, he explained, was a forged check, written on the account of a man who worked for the Pentagon.

“The victim’s name is Eric Graham. Civilian analyst.” Ryan went on to explain that the man’s checkbook had been stolen from his car in downtown D.C. The perp had been smart. The forger had noted Graham’s balance and written a check in nearly the full amount and sent it to an anonymous online payment account. Once it cleared, he’d used the money to buy gold coins from a dealer. They were delivered to a post office box and he picked them up and, presumably, sold them for cash. A clever money laundering scheme. The perp had never had to present the check in person anywhere, only collect the coins at the private mailbox operation.

“Poor bastard,” Ryan said. “Know how much was in the account? He’d just deposited forty thousand.”

Joanne was sitting nearby, staring at the TV screen, the volume low. She’d been listening apparently. “That much in a checking account? That’s a little suspicious, don’t you think?”

I recalled that she’d been a statistician, so that numbers would come easily to her, which suggested that she probably was the one who ran the household finances. I noted too that it seemed she’d never heard about the case. This struck me as odd, since my experience was that husbands and wives often talked about their careers. But then I recalled her sensitivity to the seamier side of life; maybe pillow talk about even nonviolent crimes was discouraged.

But her husband said he’d looked into that question. “It seems he’d just sold some stock and put the money into the account to pay his son’s tuition at an Ivy League school. It was due a week after the forgery.”

“Any leads?” I asked.

“I just drew the case ten days ago. I hadn’t gotten very far. The P.O. box where the coins were picked up was in New Jersey. The man who collected them was Asian, in his twenties. I followed up with Newark PD but… well, you can guess: They’ve got more serious things to worry about than bad paper.” Newark had one of the biggest drug and gang problems on the East Coast.

“Did you look into what he was working on?” I asked.

“Who?”

“The victim, guy whose checkbook got boosted.”

Ryan examined the shag carpet for a moment. “At the Pentagon?”

“Right.”

“Not really. Why?”

I noted the defensive tone was back.

“I was wondering if it was a random crime or if he was targeted.”

“Well, random, it looked random. Smash and grab. They got a gym bag, some clothes, nothing classified or sensitive.”

I asked for details, names, phone numbers, addresses. He opened his large briefcase, which was filled with hundreds of papers, and found a manila folder. He gave me the information I’d asked for. I reassured him again that we wouldn’t jeopardize his investigation.

“Appreciate that.”

“What’s the other big case you’re working on?”

“A Ponzi scheme,” he answered.

“Like Madoff?”

“Lot smaller. But the theory’s the same. It looks like he could be causing just as much damage, relatively speaking. Madoff ruined a lot of rich people’s lives. My suspect could ruin a lot of poor folks’. You ask me, that’s even worse. They don’t have anything to fall back on.”

He explained that the investment advisor under investigation was accused of preying on people in a lower-income, primarily minority quadrant of the District.

“What’s the suspect’s name?”

“Clarence Brown. He’s a reverend.”

I lifted an eyebrow.

“I know. Could be legit but it’s also a good cover to win over investors, especially in that part of the city. He got his divinity degree mail-order.” Ryan added that he’d been surprised to find that the man had nearly a thousand clients, so that, although the amounts each contributed were small, the total in the portfolio was significant.

He explained that over the past month several of those clients had tried to get their money out but Brown kept stalling, making excuse after excuse-the classic symptoms of a Ponzi scheme. The clients complained to the police and the case landed on Ryan’s desk. He’d just taken a dozen victims’ statements and was starting to piece together Brown’s operation. The delays in getting the money were just technical problems, because of some of the particular investments he’d picked, Brown had explained to Kessler. The advisor didn’t live the sweet life. The office was modest and based out of a storefront in South East D.C. Brown lived up the street in a tenement.

“I’m just curious,” I said. “If it’s a securities violation, why’s Metropolitan Police handling it?”

Ryan gave a tight smile. “Because it’s small potatoes: the crime, the victims. So a small-potato cop gets the case.”

An awkward silence.

Another excavation of the big briefcase. Documents appeared and I took down relevant details on this investigation too. “No other cases it could be?”

Another shrug. “Like I said, it’s a quiet time. The other cases’re small. Credit-card scams, identity theft. Low-dollar amounts. Mostly misdemeanors.” He pulled out a pad and wrote the details. “Penny-ante stuff.” A shrug. “That’s it.”

I gave him a nod of thanks. “This is helpful. I’ll get somebody on it right now.”

I took my notes to a table in the corner, clicked on the light-it was dim inside with the shades and curtains drawn-and made a call.

“DuBois.”

“Claire. Got some info on Kessler’s cases. I want to find out if anybody connected to them-suspects, witnesses, victims, anybody -could be the primary who hired Loving. I want you to start backgrounding all the players.”

“Okay, I’m ready.”

DuBois never calls me anything. She’s about twelve years younger than me, which puts her squarely between “sir” and “Corte.”

I gave her the details of the cases Ryan Kessler was running.