Face Value (15 page)

Chapter Thirty-four

Ameer Bashir, Sari's father, came in from Detroit for the formal premiere of “Homage to Sari,” the tribute video. The showing took place at ten-thirty that morning in the auditorium of the St. Louis Public Library's main branch. Warner & Olsen arranged for buses to shuttle the firm's lawyers and staff to the library. About a hundred and fifty people attended, including Sari's father, her cousin Malikah, and me. Benny had hoped to attend but was teaching a class that morning. I took a seat off to the side so that I had a clear view of Brian Teever, who was seated in the second row center. I spotted Stanley Plotkin. He was standing alongside a row of seats near the back. I recalled his obsession with odd numbers. Jerry Klunger was seated at the end of the row where Stanley stood.

Donald Warner and Len Olsen each made brief introductory remarks—Warner stiff, reading from notes, Olsen at ease and speaking off-the-cuff, acknowledging Sari's father and her cousin from the stage. Olsen explained that the movie was being streamed to conference rooms in the firm's other offices and that it would soon be available online at the firm's website.

I watched Teever throughout both speeches. If there were any telltale facial actions, I missed them. Toward the end of Warner's talk Teever bowed his head to check his cell phone, presumably for emails. He put it away a minute or so into Olsen's talk.

The film itself, about twenty minutes in length, was beautifully made, professionally edited, and emotionally balanced—respectful, affectionate, and genuinely moving without any overly mawkish elements. Harry Hanratty served as the film's narrator but never appeared on screen. His interview questions had been edited out so that the viewer only saw the seemingly unprompted reminiscences of the lawyers, professors, and others who had known Sari. Although most of the images of Sari were from photographs taken over the past few years, there was an adorable video clip of her on a grade school field trip to the Detroit Zoo that had me wiping tears from my eyes.

Although the tentative plans had been for Sari's father to say a few words to the audience after the screening, he was too choked up to speak, so Len Olsen concluded the event on a solemn and respectful note and the audience quietly filed out of the auditorium.

I'd driven Malikah and Ameer to the event. I drove Malikah back to her apartment near Washington University, where she said a tearful good-bye to her uncle, and then I drove Ameer Bashir to the airport, where he had a flight back to Detroit.

On the drive, I brought him up to speed on my investigation, which had not turned up much, and what little it had turned up didn't seem particularly incriminating.

“I'll keep poking around, Mr. Bashir. I still have a few leads.”

“Thank you so much, Miss Gold.”

I took the airport exit off the highway.

“There is one issue,” I said, “that you might be able to help me with.”

“Please tell me.”

“We're trying to track down an accounting firm in the Detroit area. I don't know whether it's important, but I'd like to close the loop.”

“In Detroit you say?”

“Actually, Pontiac.”

“Is it Durlester Minogue?”

I slowed the car and turned to him. “How did you know?”

He sighed. “Sari asked me.”

I pulled the car over to the road shoulder.

“When?”

“About a week before she died.”

“Did she tell you why?”

“No. She just said she was working on a matter and was trying to track down the firm. She said no one answered their telephone and that she only had a post office box for an address.”

“Were you able to find them?”

“No. I have a friend who works for the Housing Commission in Pontiac. I called him. He looked into it and called me back.”

“And?”

Ameer Bashir shook his head. “No such company in Pontiac. He even talked to the Post Office. Durlester Minogue once rented that P.O. box but not for the last two years.”

“Who has it now?”

“A collection agency.”

I shifted the car back into Drive. “So no Durlester Minogue in Pontiac?”

“I could not find one. Not in Pontiac, not in Detroit. Do you know why she wanted me to find them, Miss Gold?”

I shook my head. “Not yet. But I will find out. I promise.”

Chapter Thirty-five

“Geneva Estates?” Benny said.

“That's the address. For both of them.”

“What is it?”

“Some sort of retirement community.”

We were in my car heading west on Interstate 44 just outside St. Louis. I'd met Benny for lunch at Mission Taco in the Loop. When he found out where I was headed after lunch, he insisted on coming with me.

“Which one is Henderson?” Benny asked.

“For the accounting firm.”

“The one in Pontiac, Michigan?”

“Yep.”

I had searched the State of Michigan's government websites for some record—any record—of the Durlester Minogue accounting firm. All I found was a listing for a resident agent named Bruce Hohlcamp. A Google search turned up his obituary three years ago in the
Detroit Free Press
. He had died at the age of seventy-two.

But the resident agent listing on the State of Michigan website showed that the accounting firm was actually a Missouri limited liability company. I did a business name search on the Missouri Secretary of State's website and came up with Martin Henderson as the registered agent for Durlester Minogue LLC.

“Henderson is the successor?” Benny said.

“He is. According to the online records, he's been the registered agent for two years. Before him, there was a guy named Howard Proctor. Oddly enough, same address.”

“Geneva Estates?” Benny said.

I nodded.

“Wonder what happened to him,” Benny said.

“So did I. I found his
Post-Dispatch
obit. Heart attack. He was eighty-three.”

“CPA?”

“No. According to the obituary, he was a retired professor at Fontbonne. Philosophy. A widower. No kids.”

I took the next exit and headed south.

Benny said. “And the other guy?”

“Stanley Boudreau. According to the Missouri Secretary of State website, he's the registered agent for Structured Resolutions.”

“That's the offshore outfit?”

“Right. I guess they need a Missouri registered agent to do business here.”

“Is Boudreau another
alter kocker
?” Benny asked, using the Yiddish term for old geezer.

“Probably. It's an assisted-living complex. I don't think anyone in there is below seventy.” I put on my turn signal. “Here we are.”

I pulled into the parking lot. Geneva Estates was a large, two-story red-brick building with a portico in front. We parked on the lot and headed toward the entrance. As we approached, the doors swung open and Len Olsen emerged, talking on his cell phone. He was in full lawyer attire—navy blue suit, crisp white shirt, red-and-gold striped tie. His eyes widened when he recognized me.

“Got to hang up, Pete,” he said. “Call you back in five.”

He put the phone in his suit jacket pocket and gave me a warm smile.

“My goodness, Rachel Gold. How are you, dear?”

“I'm good, Len. This is my friend Benny. Benny, Len Olsen.”

They shook hands.

Len squinted and pointed an index finger at Benny. “Professor, right? Wash U Law?”

“Guilty as charged.”

Len chuckled. “Caught you on
Hardball
with Chris Matthews a couple weeks ago. You held your own.”

“Thanks.”

“Is Geneva Estates a client?” I asked Len.

“Oh, no.” Len shook his head and chuckled. “Purely personal. My mother lives here. I moved her up to St. Louis about ten years ago. After my father passed.”

“Does she like it?” I asked.

He shrugged and smiled. “Some days. She misses her home and her neighborhood. But my sister and I both live up here now. Having her near us makes more sense. What about you, Rachel? What are you doing all the way out here in the middle of the day?”

Before I could think of a response, Benny said, “My fault. I dragged her along after lunch. My great aunt lives here. Aunt Boopsie. Rachel's a good sport. She agreed to come with me.”

“Boopsie?” Len said.

“That's what we call her. Her husband was Big Man. Boopsie and Big Man. Quite a pair” Benny checked his watch. “We got to get in there, Rachel. My antitrust class starts in forty-five minutes.”

“Goodbye, Len,” I said.

“So long, Rachel. Nice to meet you, Benny.”

“Same here.”

When we stepped inside the building, I pulled Benny close and whispered, “You're a genius.”

“Like I told you, woman, I got mad skills.”

“Boopsie?”

“Best I could do on the fly. We needed a name he couldn't check me on. And since she's supposed to be my great aunt, her last name could be anything.”

We approached the receptionist. Beyond her to the right was a TV lounge, to the left a brightly lit dining area. It was past lunch time, and there were only three elderly women around a table in the dining area. In the TV lounge there were two older men watching CNN on a large wall-mounted flat-screen TV.

The gray-haired woman at the front desk gave us a perky smile. “Can I help you folks?”

“I hope so,” I said. “We're in from out of town and were hoping to see Martin Henderson. He's an old family friend.”

She gave us a big smile. “Why, certainly. If you'll sign in, I can take you over to the Memory Care wing. That's where Martin is these days.”

I opened the guest sign-in book and paused, trying to decide how to sign us in. Benny and I had once posed as a married couple named Nick and Nora Charles. That was Benny's idea. Clever at the time, but too risky now, especially since Len Olsen had seen us. I looked up the list of sign-ins on the page. Four rows up was Len Olsen. He'd signed in at 12:20 and had written “Lucille Olsen” in the column titled Resident Visited. I glanced up at the receptionist, who was typing something on her computer. I wrote in “B. Goldberg & Friend” in barely legible script, and under Resident Visited I scribbled in Boopsie. I closed the book and straightened up.

The receptionist stood and turned to me with a big smile. “This way.”

We followed her down a short hallway to a locked door. She punched a code into the keyboard, waited for the beep, and opened the door.

“Have a good time,” she said.

Benny and I stepped inside and she closed the door behind us.

There was a nurse's station to our left, a dining room ahead, and another TV lounge to the right. About a dozen elderly men and women, mostly women, were seated in the TV lounge watching a soap opera—or at least facing the TV. About half of them were asleep.

A woman in a nurse's outfit approached with a big smile. “Hello. Who are we here to see?”

“Martin Henderson,” I said. “He was a friend of the family, and we promised to see him when we were in St. Louis.”

She smiled. “How nice.”

She gestured toward the dining area. “There's a little lounge beyond the tables. See the couches? Make yourselves comfortable and we'll bring Martin over.”

Five minutes later a heavy-set black man in a blue orderly's outfit escorted an elderly white man toward us. The white man looked to be in his eighties. He was frail and moved with a slow, deliberate shuffle, taking tiny steps as he stared at the floor.

“Here we are, Martin,” the orderly said in a cheerful voice. “Some friends of yours have to come to visit. Can you say hi?”

Martin Henderson slowly raised his eyes and looked at me and then Benny. His face was expressionless, his mouth sagging open.

The orderly helped him get seated and then backed up. “Call if you need help,” he said to me. And then he bowed and stepped away.

“Hello, Mr. Henderson,” I said in a friendly voice.

Henderson turned slowly toward me, his eyes blank. He said nothing.

“We came here to talk to you about Durlester Minogue.”

No response.

“Do you know anything about the company?”

He stared at me, expressionless. In a hoarse voice, he said, “She doesn't have the tickets.”

“What tickets?”

After a moment, “She doesn't have the tickets.”

“Do you have the tickets?” I said.

He stared at me and then turned slowly toward Benny. “No mustard,” he said.

“No mustard?” Benny said. “Bummer, eh?”

He just stared, his head tilted slightly, mouth open, a rivulet of drool sliding down his chin and then trickling onto his pants.

On the way out of the Memory Care unit, as the nurse punched the code into the keypad, I asked, “Is Stanley Boudreau in here or over in the assisted living wing?”

There was a beep and the nurse opened the door. “Stanley is here with us,” she said. “He's asleep now. His days and nights are turned around. He's up most of the night and sleeps during the days.”

“Is that unusual?” I asked.

She gave me a sad smile. “Unfortunately, it's not unusual with our dementia patients. Many of them have their days and nights turned around.”

Chapter Thirty-six

We all have our secrets.

Even Paul Rogers, who is one of the classiest people I know. In his late sixties now, Paul remains one of the top municipal lawyers in Missouri. A former chair of the American Bar Association's Committee on Land Use Planning, Paul sits on the boards of several St. Louis companies and non-profit organizations. The press coverage of most local charity galas includes a photo of Paul in a tuxedo standing next to his graceful wife Marie.

But Paul's secret is his passion for Woofies. While those from outside St. Louis might be wondering what bizarre sexual kink goes by that name, most of us natives would simply nod in pleasant surprise. That's because most of us would expect to find Paul Rogers at noon seated at a prime power-lunch booth in an upscale restaurant in Clayton or downtown. Instead, he and I always met at his favorite lunchtime spot: Woofies, a genuine Chicago-style hot dog shack in Overland, a near suburb.

I smiled as I watched the former president of the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis study the menu on the wall and then order his usual: a Big Daddy with extra grilled onions, chili cheese fries, and a lemonade. I opted for pure Chicago—a Woofie dog with mustard, neon-green relish, and sport peppers, an order of fries, and a Coke.

Paul grinned in anticipation as he watched them pile the grilled onions onto his quarter-pound dog. Today was obviously not a court day because he was dressed in what I call his Mister Rogers outfit, right down to the cardigan sweater and blue sneakers.

We took our trays of food over to a pair of stools along the side wall counter just beneath framed signed photographs of Stan Musial and Chuck Berry.

Paul lifted his hot dog with both hands and glanced over at me with a big grin. “Oh, what a treat.”

As is typical for any two people who've spent time in Chicago, we had debated who served the best hot dogs in that town. My pick was Wiener Circle on North Clark in the Lincoln Park area. Paul's was Fluky's in Rogers Park—in part for the quality of their hot dogs and in part for sentimental reasons, since Woofie's founder, the late Charlie Eisner, had apprenticed at Fluky's.

We ate our hot dogs in silence, showing proper respect for Vienna Beef. When Paul finished, he wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, took a sip of his lemonade, and turned to me.

“I confess, Rachel, I'd never ever heard of that outfit before.”

“But some of your fellow club members had?”

“Oh, yes.”

In my struggle to make sense out of Structured Resolutions—and in the hopes of finding a potential source other than Brian Teever—I decided to see whether the St. Louis Country Club pattern existed anywhere else. I had friends who were members of the two Jewish country clubs in town, and I asked them to make discreet inquires about Structured Resolutions among the members. Bellerive Country Club is the other exclusive local country club for WASPs, and I knew that Paul Rogers was a longtime member. I'd asked him to make inquiries there and promised to buy him lunch as a reward.

My two Jewish friends reported back that no one at either club had heard of Structured Resolutions. Apparently, Paul had different news from Bellerive.

“What did you hear?” I asked.

“The investors love it. They've earned solid returns year in and year out, regardless of what the stock markets are doing.”

“Are there a lot of investors at Bellerive?”

“Doesn't sound like it. I spoke to three who'd put money in it. Lots of money. Seven figures for two of them. I can't tell you who they are, of course, but I can tell you that you would recognize their names.”

“Did they tell you how they were able to invest in the company?”

“That part is fascinating,” Paul said. “It's difficult to get in. Apparently, it's closed to the general public. If you want to invest, you need a contact person. That's what all three told me.”

“What does the contact person do?”

“Make the inside connection, I gather. He can try to convince the company to allow in another investor. There is some sort of waiting list, but your contact person might be able to move you up to the head of the line.”

“Did they tell you who their contact person was?”

Paul nodded.

“Was it the same contact person each time?”

“Yes, it was.”

“Brian Teever?” I asked.

Paul frowned. “No one mentioned him.”

“Who was it?”

Paul lowered his voice. “This is confidential, Rachel.”

“I understand.”

“You can never connect me with this information, or it will get back to the three gentlemen I mentioned.”

“You have my word, Paul”

He nodded. “Rob Brenner.”

I was surprised. “Do you know Rob?”

“I do. I've occasionally played golf in a foursome with him.”

“At Bellerive?”

“Yes.”

“Is he a member?”

“He is.”

I absorbed the information, not sure what to make of it.

“Rob is a relative newcomer,” Paul said.

“To the club?”

“Oh, no. His father Ken served a term as president of the club. A good fellow. Corporate lawyer. Had his own firm in Clayton. Passed away a few years ago. No, I was referring to this investment vehicle. Structured Resolutions. According to my sources, Rob has been the point person for the last year or so. Bill Dayton was his predecessor. Literally, I suppose.”

“What do you mean?”

“Bill is deceased. He died about two years ago. Actually, he was killed.”

“How?”

“A hunting accident. Bill Dayton was a big-time hunter. Went antelope hunting in Montana, elk hunting in Wyoming, and deer hunting here in Missouri. That's where he got shot.”

“Who shot him?”

“No one knows. They did an investigation but never turned up any suspects. Happens more often than you might think, Rachel. I read somewhere that almost a hundred people die in hunting accidents each year. Poor Bill was one of them that year.”