Andrew Gross - Reckless

“One could say the same about you.” He came around the desk and they shook hands. “Until the present time, that is,” he said with a wise smile, motioning Hauck over to a seating area by the large window.

“Yeah.” Hauck smiled. “You might say that, Vern.”

“We miss you here, Ty,” the chief said, motioning for Hauck to sit down. “Steve’s doing a terrific job, but I don’t have to tell you that your imprint is all over the place here.”

“If I knew you were going to redo it like this I wouldn’t have left.”

He laughed. He crossed his legs and sank back in the couch. “So, how’s the private sector treating you?”

“It’s brought a few surprises.”

Fitzpatrick nodded sagely. “You were always a good man, Ty…But you always did have a special talent for stepping knee-deep in the shit bucket, didn’t you, son?”

Hauck smiled in return. “Yeah, Vern, guess I always did.”

“Well, hate to see that muck up the new career just as it’s starting to bloom. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on.”

Steve came over and leaned against the wall. Hauck took his old boss through the tale of how it had all begun: Hearing the news about Marc Glassman that morning. Seeing April’s face. “She was a friend of mine, at a time before I moved up here, when I really needed one. I was part of a therapy group for a while. After Norah died. April helped me through. When I saw what happened…” Hauck took in a breath, blew it out, and smiled crookedly. “Well, you know me…”

“Yeah, I know you, Ty. I’m sorry. I wish we had made more progress on the Glassman thing. Still working it though.”

“Around the same time,” Hauck went on, “I was introduced to a woman through my job whose name I’d rather keep out of it for now. The assignment was confidential. It was a background search. She raised some doubts about a man she’d been seeing.”

Vern chuckled. “I thought they had you hobnobbing with congressmen and company heads over at that firm of yours. Didn’t realize it was the same old shit, just with a fancier shingle on the door.”

“It was a favor,” Hauck said. “For my boss. The managing director there. Let’s call the man Subject A.”

“Subject A.” Vern nodded. “Alright.”

“As I looked into him, it became clear most of her doubts were valid. The guy just got dirtier and dirtier. At the same time”-Hauck opened his case and nodded to Steve-“I guess I started sticking my nose into the Glassman thing.”

“Subject B. Can’t say that went over well here, Ty. You left. You moved on to other things.”

“She was a friend, Vern. During a rough patch of my life.” Hauck wet his lips and thought about how to make it sound right. “Everyone had the thing labeled as a burglary. Doesn’t matter now. What does matter is that in looking into this other subject, I came across something…”

Vern took off his wire-rims, folded them neatly, and put them in his breast pocket.

“Something that tied him back to the other case,” Hauck said. “To Marc Glassman.”

Now Vern’s eyes widened in interest. “What?”

“A photo.” Hauck reached into his case and took it out of the file. He laid it on the glass table. “That’s them there. In conversation. A polo event at Conyers Farm. Last summer.”

Vern looked it over. “The two of them talking…” He handed it to Steve with a skeptical gaze. “You haven’t been in the private sector that long not to know that a shot of two people talking in a public place isn’t exactly a slam dunk when it comes to evidence. And for what? What is it you’re trying to say? Steve’s been telling me you’ve been pushing that this Glassman thing wasn’t a home break-in from the start.”

“And I turned out to be right, didn’t I? And no, it doesn’t make much of a case for anything-by itself. That’s why when the guy in New York suddenly died as well, the other trader-”

“Subject C,” Vern said, nodding patiently. “The suicide that’s not a suicide.”

“The second guy who died under other suspicious circumstances. Who was covering up massive losses. Not to mention who brought down a second Wall Street firm. I went in to try to see if there was any connection.”

“That’s what sticking your nose into an ongoing police investigation and harassing the victim’s wife was all about?”

“There was no active investigation. And all I did was talk to her, Vern, with her consent. And yes, I can see how maybe I might’ve overstepped on some things. And how maybe it would be easy to think I’m a guy who just can’t get used to life away from the force, or that a photo of two guys talking at a polo match doesn’t mean shit-all of it-if it weren’t for what I found.”

The chief’s smile suddenly got narrow and Vern’s stare steadied on him. “You mean like a pen with your company logo on it found at the crime scene?”

“Come on, Vern, you really think I killed that guy? For what? So I could short Beeston Holloway in my 401(k)?” He turned to Steve. “What kind of vehicle did the Glassman kid claim to have seen at the end of the driveway that night?”

“A black Suburban. Unmarked.”

“The same thing James Donovan’s wife told me her husband spotted outside their apartment building two days before he died.”

Vern wrinkled his brow. “Jeez, Ty, that’s even weaker than the photo.”

Hauck took out the rest of the file. He dropped Thibault’s phone log in front of Vern on the table. He jabbed his finger at it. “How about I place three separate calls from that same person in that photograph to the very office where James Donovan hung himself? One, Vern, the night before he died. Are we getting warmer?”

Vern picked up the sheets and put on his glasses and scanned over the yellow highlights delineating Dani Thibault’s phone calls to Donovan’s apartment building.

“That enough to maybe make you rethink the home break-in theory?” Hauck pointed to the highlighting. “That’s why they did it there. It wouldn’t show up on a routine search of Donovan’s phone records. The only reason it did turn up is I happened to be looking into the other case. C’mon, Vern, Steve, you don’t have to know what a credit-default swap is to figure out two successful traders are dead, traders who lost billions and whose two firms are history now…”

Fitzpatrick nodded, seeming to glance in the direction of the adjoining conference room. “You said this was part of a confidential search. What does your firm think of what you stumbled on?”

Hauck shrugged. “This is where it starts to get a little sticky for me, Vern. I haven’t told them.”

“Haven’t told them?” Vern put down the papers. “Some things don’t seem to change, do they, son?”

“One of the firm’s largest clients is Reynolds Reid. Apparently, they’re seeking to pick up some of Wertheimer Grant’s assets. Their retail broker division. My boss doesn’t want to muck up the deal by bringing out possible revelations of fraud or a possible scandal. So they pushed me off the case.”

“Some people might find it sticky that two New York City detectives are trying to tie you into a murder case, Ty.”

“Someone’s trying to set me up. I don’t know whether that pen is mine or not. I don’t know what they’ll find on it. More to the point, what does it even matter? Do I have to prove myself to you? You think you’re going to find my face on some security tape sneaking into the building? That’s why I couldn’t go to my firm. I can’t trust them. Four people are dead, Vern. I don’t know why they had to be killed, but while I’m out there having to prove my innocence two banks have collapsed. Am I the only person in the world who sees what may be going on?”