David ed. - Face Off (2014) Anthology

The letter had still another quality to it, like a rabbit pulled from a hat. Samir Rashid somehow had acquired information about Mirza and his family in Egypt. According to Rashid, they were under a severe threat of death from the people who had raided the Cairo Museum and stolen the golden figurine, Surfing the Panther. These people had already killed Carla Spinova to get their hands on the memorandum left behind in the charred U.S. consulate building in Benghazi, the memo that identified the mastermind behind the museum theft, as well as the deal for the sale to the North Korean dictator. Rashid’s same sources had told him about the letter delivered to Mirza and the threat to his family. The Cairo thieves were desperate to convict Mustaffa for Spinova’s murder—to make her death appear to be a brutal sexual assault, staged to seem so—because it would put an end to the controversy and leave them free to do their deals with their stolen booty. Case solved. Story over. It all made sense. Sort of.

Slowly her subconscious released her and Jenny drifted off to sleep. She couldn’t tell how long the slumber lasted, minutes or hours, disoriented as she was in the dark room. But she was awakened with a start by the noise next to her head. She opened her eyes in the dark, little blinking lights in unfamiliar places and the sound of the electronic ringtone blaring next to the bed. She grabbed for the receiver and found it on the second stab.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Jenny. Paul Madriani here. I’m sorry to wake you.”

“What is it?” She looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was four thirty in the morning.

“We need to talk. The police called me ten minutes ago. Ibid Mustaffa is dead.”

“What?”

“He was killed by a hit-and-run driver at an intersection in West Los Angeles two hours ago. The police found my business card with the hotel phone number in Mustaffa’s pocket. They said he was drunk, stumbled into the street, and got nailed. According to witnesses, the driver sped off.”

Jenny’s mind, still half asleep, raced trying to absorb it all.

“Corcoran, are you there?”

“Yes. I’m here.”

“Mustaffa was Islamic, devout. He prayed five times a day. More to the point, he didn’t drink.”

· · ·

An hour later, the two lawyers sat bleary-eyed hunched over the table in Paul’s hotel room gulping coffee from Styrofoam cups, something from an all-night café on the corner.

“I don’t believe in coincidence,” said Jenny. “You want to know what I think?”

“What?” said Paul.

“I think Mirza was telling the truth. I don’t think he’d ever seen that letter before. I mean, you had him in a vise right there on the stand, squeezing him with hard evidence. Why not own up? After all, if your family is in jeopardy, it’s no longer a secret.”

“Then how did his prints get on the letter and the envelope?”

“Blank paper,” said Jenny. “Maybe somebody got into his house. We all stack paper in our printers. Somebody could have taken the bottom page from the feeder. Or better, somebody hands Mirza a blank piece of paper in an envelope. He opens it, looks at it. Whoever gives it to him says, “Oops, wrong envelope,” takes it back, and gives him something else. Mirza never thinks twice about it. The contents of the letter are then typed or printed on the blank page and suddenly the witness is confronted with it in court.”

“You’re forgetting something. How did the letter get into Mirza’s safe-deposit box?” said Madriani.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way. You said it was found inside an envelope with some insurance documents.”

“Right.”

“Where did the insurance papers come from?”

“I don’t know. I assume an insurance agency.”

“Yes and we, as well as the court, all assumed that Mirza either hid the letter or misfiled it with his insurance papers. Now let me ask you, who reads insurance documents?” said Jenny.

Paul looked at her. “Nobody.”

“Exactly. You receive them and you file them away somewhere safe. Anybody could have gotten to that manila envelope with the insurance documents and slipped whatever they wanted in it before it was delivered to Mirza. Look again and you might find pictures of Mirza shooting from the grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza.”

Paul thought for a moment. “And who knew exactly where to look for the letter?”

“Rashid,” said Jenny. She looked at her watch, picked up the receiver on the nightstand, and started dialing, first an outside line.

“Who are you calling?”

“Alex. I need to pick her brain, but it’s going right to voice mail.”

“She may still be airborne,” Paul said.

Jenny tried again and asked for information this time.

“I would like the phone number for New York, the United Nations, UNESCO, if there is a separate listing.”

“What about his business card?” said Paul.

Jenny shook her head. “If I’m right, that’s probably an answering service. They’ll answer with any name a client gives them.”

Ten minutes later they had the news. The good part was that UNESCO had its own main number; the bad news was that no one by the name of Samir Rashid worked there. There was no listing under that name for any employee.

Jenny slammed the receiver into the cradle. “He played you and Alex like a piano. How the hell did he get into the building? His office?”

“After hours. On a Saturday night,” said Paul. “And the janitor who just happened to be going in through the side door. The man is just full of coincidences. He used the service elevator instead of the bank of elevators near the main entrance. I should have known it was way too smooth.”

“No going through security,” said Jenny.

“Exactly. He probably paid the janitor at the door to let Alex and me in. You hang a few pictures and certificates on the wall, put a holder with business cards on the desk, slip a plastic plaque with your name on the office door and you’re in business. What we saw is what he wanted us to see. It’s all about confidence,” said Paul. “Put yourself in the right setting, surround yourself with a cloak of authority, and you can peddle anything.”

“To two gullible lawyers, searching for the truth,” said Jenny. “And all you got was smoke and mirrors. Alex will go ballistic.”

“Don’t be so hard on us. We were the perfect marks. I’ve got a loser of a case. He’s got the answer, the solution to all my problems. He plays on the interests of justice. We both wanted the fair result, especially when we figured out that Mustaffa was being set up.”

“Why does he want to get Mustaffa off?” said Jenny.

“Mustaffa killed Spinova,” said Paul. “He had something Rashid wanted and he was holding it over Rashid’s head unless Rashid helped him beat the charges.”

“What?”

“The CIA memorandum,” said Paul.

“What? You think that was real?” said Jenny.

“The best con is one that includes a kernel of truth. Mustaffa killed Spinova to get the memo—and he got it. But in the process he got nailed. Mirza saw him dump the body. Cops caught up with him and Mustaffa used the memo which, unless I’m wrong, identifies Rashid as the mastermind behind the Cairo Museum theft. Mustaffa used the memo to extort Rashid. ‘Help me or else.’ If Mustaffa goes down for the count, he uses the memo and the evidence in it to cut a deal for himself come sentencing.”

“Enter two overanxious lawyers,” said Jenny. “And Alex, trying to do the right thing by the dead woman. Make sure the wrong guy isn’t convicted unfairly. Those autopsy pictures haunted her.”

“Now Mustaffa’s dead. The memo’s gone,” said Paul, “and God knows where Rashid is, assuming that’s even his name, which you and I both know it is not. He may be a lot of things, but stupid is not one of them.”