Face Value (17 page)

Chapter Forty

After a pause, I said, “Blood money?”

“You heard me.”

She strode back over and sat down on the couch, an angry look in her eyes.

“So you think Structured Resolution was connected to your husband's death?”

“I do. I can't prove it, but I do.”

“Why?”

“Several things. First off, Bill's passion was hunting. He'd been doing it since he was a teenager. But he was a cautious hunter. He always wore his bright yellow jacket and yellow hat—the ones he claimed you could see even in a thicket. But he wasn't killed in a thicket. I went down to Oxford County. I saw exactly where he was standing when he was shot. One of the county deputies took me out there. It was on the edge of a clearing in the woods. Bill was facing the clearing and wearing that bright yellow jacket and hat. He was shot in the chest, which means he was shot in the open by someone staring across that clearing.”

“Do they know how close the shooter was?”

“No. They say he was standing at least two hundred yards away. The only footprints near my husband were the ones of the two hunters who found him.”

“What did the authorities say?”

She exhaled slowly and shook her head. “They labeled it a likely accidental homicide. One of three that year in Oxford County, one of fourteen over the past decade.”

“Okay.”

“Except Bill's was the only one with an unidentified shooter.”

“So you don't believe it was an accident?”

“He was at the edge of the clearing and he was shot in the chest.” There was anger in her voice now, and in her eyes. “That was no accident. That jacket didn't protect him. It turned him into a target.”

She stood and walked into the kitchen, shaking her head.

I waited.

After a few minutes, she returned to her seat. Her eyes were red.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

“You have nothing to apologize for, Beth.”

“It gets me upset.”

She poured herself another cup of coffee. I waited as she added artificial sweetener and cream, stirred the cup, put the spoon down, took a sip, then another, and set the cup onto the saucer. She looked up at me.

“You called the money blood money,” I said. “Why?”

“I think they killed him. I think they saw Bill as a threat and they killed him.”

“Who is the they?”

“That outfit he did work for. Structured Resolutions.”

“Why would they want Bill dead?”

“Because he started asking awkward questions.”

“What kind of questions?”

“Financial ones. I don't know exactly what he asked, but I know he was starting to have doubts about that company and wanted answers to his questions before he would give anyone else at the club access.”

“Were people at the club asking questions?”

“Hardly. Bill said they were lining up to get in. And each with a big pile of money. That's what made him nervous. My husband was a good man, Miss Gold. These people at the club were his friends. Bill wanted to make sure they didn't get hurt. ‘This'll be on my head,' he told me more than once. ‘If this investment turns out to be nothing but smoke and mirrors,' he said, ‘I'm the one they'll blame.' He tried to find information on the company on his own but couldn't find a thing. That really bothered him.”

“You said he started asking questions.”

“He did, but he wasn't getting answers.”

“Who did he ask?”

“I don't know.” She frowned. “That's what I've been trying to find out.”

“How?”

“I hired an investigator about a year ago, but he got nowhere. After six months all he could find out was Rob Brenner was now serving the same role Bill used to have at the country club.”

“Did the investigator talk to Brenner?”

“No. I told him not to. Brenner was the one who'd brought me that big check. He hadn't been straight with me that day, and I didn't think he'd be straight with some investigator, either. And by then I knew who to talk to.”

“Who?”

“Donald or Len. They were Brenner's bosses. If anyone could get him to answer questions, they could.”

“Did you talk to them?”

“To Donald. I tried Len first, but he was out of town on a case. I met with Donald.”

“When?”

“About three weeks ago.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Not much to tell. We met at his office. I told him my suspicions about Bill's death and about the big payment check that Rob Brenner had delivered and the fact that Brenner was now doing what Bill used to do at Bellerive.”

“What did Warner say?”

“He promised to look into the matter—both the Oxford County investigation of Bill's death and any information he could find about Structured Resolutions.”

“And?”

“Nothing yet. He called last Friday to say he was working on it but that it might take a few more weeks to gather all the information. He told me he would get back with whatever he was able to find out.”

“Did you get the sense that Warner knew about Structured Resolutions?”

“Hard to say. He mainly asked questions and took notes.”

Chapter Forty-one

We waited as Rebecca Hamel studied the Oxford County Sheriff's Department file on William T. Dayton's death. I'd borrowed Beth Dayton's copy for the meeting. The file included several gruesome color photographs of the victim, both in the field and in the morgue, along with various investigative reports. Rebecca was a hunter, and thus seemed a good person to review the file.

It was Sunday afternoon and we were gathered in Benny's law school office. It was a less visible place for the gathering than my office or home. In addition to Rebecca Hamel and Benny, Stanley Plotkin and Jerry Klunger were here. I'd picked them up on the way to Benny's office.

Rebecca was seated behind Benny's desk. She closed the file and looked up. “She's right.”

“You mean Beth?” I said.

Rebecca nodded. “It's suspicious.”

I said, “The investigators estimate that the shooter was between two and three hundred yards from Dayton. That's pretty far away.”

“Yes and no,” she said. “Three hundred yards isn't that far for deer hunting. According to the file, the shooter used a long range cartridge. A .270 Weatherby Mag. Same one my dad and I use on our hunting trips. You don't shoot at anything that far away without a long-range scope mounted on your rifle. At three hundred yards, Mr. Dayton would have been in focus in the scope's cross hairs.”

She opened the folder and lifted up a sheet of paper. “According to this, there was no wind that day. If you know what you're doing and your goal was to shoot Mr. Dayton, he'd have been an easy target from that distance.”

“You think the shooter meant to shoot him?” Benny asked.

She shrugged. “It was opening day for deer season. That's a big deal in this state. I've gone hunting with my dad on that day. Lots of hunters turn out. Even so, though, looking through a long-range scope, Mr. Dayton would have been pretty hard to mistake for a deer, especially in that bright yellow jacket.”

Stanley cleared his throat. We turned toward him.

“We can safely conclude,” he announced “that Mr. Dayton's death is suspicious. We can also safely conclude that his suspicions were well-founded.”

“Meaning what?” I said.

Stanley craned his neck and turned to Jerry. “Explicate, Mr. Klunger.”

Jerry frowned at Stanley. “What?”

“He means explain,” Benny said.

“Oh,” Jerry said. “Yes. Stanley had me talk to the plaintiffs' lawyers in some of those cases.”

“Which cases?” I said.

“The ones on that form.”

“You mean the annual statement from Structured Resolutions?” I said.

Jerry looked at Stanley for the answer.

“Precisely,” Stanley said.

I turned to Rebecca and Benny. “We have three annual investment statements from Structured Resolutions. I got them in discovery in the sexual harassment suit against Doctor Mason. He's an investor. Each statement includes in a footnote a list of what it calls representative underlying cases where the plaintiffs cashed in their structured settlements for a single payment. The cases are from all over the country. My assistant did a docket search. She confirmed that they were all real cases and they all settled.”

I looked back at Jerry. “You actually talked to the plaintiffs' lawyers in those cases?”

“In just four of them,” Jerry said.

“Four proved sufficient,” Stanley stated.

“Sufficient for what?”

“To establish the essential fact.”

“Which is?” I asked

“That Structured Resolutions is a fraudulent enterprise.”

Benny said. “Tell us about your conversations, Jerry.”

“Stanley wrote me a script to follow,” Jerry said. “That's what I did.”

“What was in the script?” I asked.

“I told each lawyer that I was a graduate student working on a research paper on structured settlements, that I had just a few questions that would take no more than five minutes to answer, and that they would stay…uhm…ani…uhm…”

“Anonymous,” Stanley snapped.

“Right. I called eight lawyers and four gave me answers. I had the names of their cases and when they were dismissed. Two of the lawyers told me right off the bat that there wasn't a structured settlement in their case. One even told me that he settled the case for seventy-five thousand dollars. He warned me that information was strictly confidential. The other two lawyers told me there was a structured settlement. My next question on the script was whether their client had sold his structured settlement. One of them had sold his, the other hadn't. The one whose client did sell his structured settlement sold it to a company called…”

Jerry paused, trying to remember.

“Strategic Capital,” Stanley announced.

Jerry nodded. “Yes, that was the name.”

I leaned back in my chair, trying to absorb that information.

“So,” I finally said, “two of four representative structured settlement cases didn't even involve a structured settlement, and neither of the other two was purchased by Structured Resolutions.”

“You are correct,” Stanley said. “Thus the conclusion that Structured Resolutions is a fraudulent enterprise.”

“Which Sari must have discovered,” I said.

“As did Bill Dayton,” Benny said.

I nodded and turned toward Jerry. “Good work.”

Jerry blushed. “Thank you, Miss Gold.”

“You, too, Stanley.”

“As you may know,” Stanley announced, “William Dayton is also the name of one of the two unsuccessful candidates for the Vice-Presidency in the election of 1856. The victor, John Breckenridge, received 174 votes to Mr. Dayton's 114 votes. The third candidate, one Andrew Donelson, received only eight votes. I would be remiss, however, if I did not point out that the William Dayton that is the subject of your inquiry had a middle initial of
T
while the unsuccessful candidate had a middle initial of
L
.”

After a moment of silence, Benny said, “We thank you for not being remiss. Back to
our
Bill Dayton: Where the hell are we now?”

“He needed money,” I said. “That was their hold over him.”

“What's their hold over the other two?” Benny said.

I turned to Rebecca. “Thoughts?”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“According to Bill Dayton's wife, he got involved in Structured Resolutions because he needed money. That was their hold over him, although apparently it wasn't strong enough. Assuming that Brian Teever and Rob Brenner are doing that outfit's bidding, where do you think they're vulnerable? Are there any rumors about them at the firm?”

She stared past me at the wall as she thought it over.

I waited.

She shifted her gaze to mine. “Sex.”

“What kind of sex?” I asked.

“Just rumors.”

“I understand.”

Keeping her eyes on mine, ignoring the others in the room, she said, “The year before I joined the firm, Mr. Brenner supposedly had sex with two of the firm's interns.”

“Law students?” I asked.

“High school students,” she said. “They were part of a summer internship program sponsored by the city schools. Supposedly, Mr. Brenner invited the girls back to his place for dinner. They got drunk and he had sex with them.”

“What happened?” I asked.

She shrugged. “No one knows. There's a rumor that the girls got a lawyer and threatened to file charges against him and then it got resolved. All hush hush.”

I turned to Benny and raised my eyebrows. “That's leverage.”

He nodded.

I looked back at Rebecca. “And Teever. What's his sex issue?”

“The wives of clients.”

“Such as Claire Hudson?”

Rebecca frowned. “I haven't heard about that one.”

“Sari never mentioned it? That was the estate plan she was working on that included the Structured Resolutions investment.”

Rebecca shook her head. “She didn't say anything.”

“So Teever has had affairs with the wives of other clients?”

“At least one. That's the rumor.” She shrugged. “Supposedly the husband found out and raised hell.”

Chapter Forty-two

“They're rumors, Benny. Not proven facts.”

“Come on, Rachel. She's an associate, and a sharp one, too. We were once associates at a big law firm. We knew more secrets about that firm than some of the partners.”

Benny and I had remained at his office after the meeting. Rebecca Hamel drove Stanley and Jerry home.

“You remember Graham Marshall?” he said.

I smiled. “Hard to forget.”

“That's my point. According to the official version, he died of a heart attack at his desk that night while working on an appellate brief. Hell, that's the version that was even published in the
New York Times.
I bet there are still partners at Abbott & Windsor that believe that bullshit. But we associates knew the real story.”

Graham Anderson Marshall was a powerful senior partner at Abbott & Windsor. The heart attack that killed him that night occurred in the living room of a condominium overlooking Lake Michigan. At the time of his death he was neither working on a brief nor wearing any. Instead, he was indulging in his fetish for rubber (specifically, a skin-diving suit, crotch unsnapped) and his preference for fellatio, which he was receiving from a high-priced escort named Cindi Reynolds—all of which I was to learn after the fact when retained by his firm to investigate a mysterious grave in a pet cemetery.

“I liked Cindi,” I said.

“So does Fox. I understand she co-anchors the five o'clock news in Chicago on Fox 32.”

“Wow. Good for her.”

“But my point here is that there are good reasons to take these rumors about Teever and Brenner seriously. Especially Teever. You already know he was banging one client's wife.”

“Assuming the rumors are true,” I said, “then someone else in that law firm has a lot of leverage over those two lawyers. My questions are who and why?”

Benny nodded. “Don't know the who, but we're starting to get a good read on the why. That Stanley is fucking genius.”

“Hard to believe the whole thing is a scam.”

“Sure starting to sound like it.”

“I don't get it,” I said. “They're not targeting little old ladies in Dubuque with twenty thousand-dollar savings accounts. They're getting millions of dollars from sophisticated businessmen. And they're doing so with financial statements that Pinky Zuckerman described as opaque.”

“I have a two word answer for you: Bernie Madoff. You want two more words? Allen Stanford. Or any of the other hundreds of Ponzi schemers who've bilked billions out of supposedly smart investors.”

I sighed. “I suppose.”

“I'll be curious to see if we get a bite on that Laclede Club bait we dangled in front of Brenner. That kind of money ought to be damn tempting.”

“Which reminds me,” I said. “Paul Rogers wouldn't give me the names of the three Bellerive Country Club members he knew had invested in Structured Resolutions, but he told me one was a former president of the club and two had served on the membership committee. In other words, big shots at the club. If Brenner or whoever tries to narrow down the Laclede Club membership for the possible candidates for our mysterious big donor, he's going to end up with two former club presidents and one chair of the membership committee.”

“Which means?” Benny said.

I shrugged. “Nothing yet. Something to file away.”

Benny leaned forward, his expression serious. “Here's something
not
to file away. Sari Bashir asked questions about Structured Resolutions, Sari Bashir died. Bill Dayton asked questions about Structured Resolutions, Bill Dayton died. You be careful, Rachel.”

“I will.”

“I'm serious.”

“I know you are, Benny. Thanks.”