Face Value (21 page)
Authors: Michael A Kahn
Rebecca Hamel nodded. “So it's Mr. Warner.”
“Apparently,” I said.
“Interesting.”
“He wasn't at the top of my list.”
“Nor mine.”
Rebecca and I were seated on a park bench in Soldiers Memorial Park and facing the Military Museum, a limestone structure with an outer wall of massive four-sided stone columns. In front of us was the entranceway, above which was engraved TO OUR SOLDIER DEAD. Flanking the broad stairway leading up to the entrance were two large stone Art Deco statues of winged horses, each with a martial-looking man or woman at its side.
The park, two blocks west of the Civil Courts Building in downtown St. Louis, was a good place for us to meet. Rebecca had a hearing in Division Four that morning at eleven. We agreed to meet at ten-fifteen. All the surveillance and wiretapping had raised my own paranoia level even though I assumedâor at least hopedâthat I was not among the watched. Nevertheless, it seemed prudent to meet somewhere outdoors, and preferably just with Rebecca. The logistics and added risks of trying to include Stanley and Jerry seemed too high, especially since there would be plenty of time for Rebecca to update them on what was going on.
“When did you find out?” she asked.
“Last night. I got a call from Detective Tomaso.”
“So it goes down tomorrow night?”
“At the airport,” I said. “The flight is at nine. They'll make the arrest before he boards.”
“Do they think he'll confess?”
“No. But they feel confident he'll be carrying evidence. Either in a laptop or in his briefcase. Or maybe in his luggage if he checks any, which they expect him to do. They'll have an FBI agent ready to intercept his luggage before it gets loaded onto the plane.”
Rebecca frowned. “What do they expect to find?”
“Financial records, passwords, electronic data. Maybe not the whole scheme, but enough to give them access into it. I didn't get details. All Tomaso told me was that the FBI says that an operation of that scale can't be run from one guy's memory and can't be run without a central control.”
“You said a flight to Detroit?”
“That's just the first leg. Warner apparently bought that ticket a month ago. Or rather, his secretary bought it for him. He has a client in the Detroit area. He's been going there about once a month for the last few years. Typically, he flies in the night before, has his meetings the next morning, and flies back to St. Louis. What tipped them off apparently happened yesterday. Though he hasn't cancelled the flight back from Detroit, he bought a new ticket that day from Detroit to JFK in New York, and from there to Casablanca.”
“Casablanca? Like that movie?”
“Same city.”
“Where is it?”
“In Morocco.”
Rebecca frowned. “What's there for him?”
“Apparently, what's important is what
isn't
there for him. Morocco has no extradition treaty with the U.S.”
“So if he gets thereâ¦?”
“He's beyond our government's reach.”
She nodded. “Tomorrow night.”
“That's the plan. You can tell Stanley and Jerry, but make sure they understand they have to keep it absolutely secret. Detective Tomaso told me on a strictly confidential basis. I'm not supposed to tell anyone, but the three of you have been in this from the beginning. You deserve to know. Tell Stanley and Jerry to assume the government is monitoring their phones and their emails. That means no calls, no emails. For all of us. If you need to tell me something, do it via a text message. And keep it short and cryptic.”
“When will you know about the arrest?”
I shrugged. “Probably not until it's announced. I'll call you.”
She nodded and checked her watch.
“You better get going,” I said. “In my experience, Judge Carter starts on time.”
We both stood.
“Good luck in court,” I said.
We shook hands.
She smiled. “Thanks, Rachel.”
As she walked toward the courthouse, I looked around the park. It was warm for December. There was a homeless man asleep under a nearby tree. Two teenagers were playing catch with a Frisbee. A pudgy man in a brown suit was walking quickly along the pathway in the direction of the courthouse. He had a briefcase in one hand and was holding a cell phone to his ear with the other. He gave me a curt nod as he passed. It sounded like he was talking to his secretary.
No one in the park looked suspicious.
As if you would you know
, I reminded myself.
“So tonight?” my mother said.
I checked my watch. “In about an hour.”
“Oh, Bea will be so proud when she hears.”
Bea was Stanley Plotkin's mother.
“A doctor and a rabbi for sons,” my mother said, “and now she has a regular Columbus.”
“Columbus?”
“That smarty-pants detective on TV. The one played by Peter what's-his-name. Fonda, I think.”
“Columbo, Mom. And the actor is Peter Falk.”
“That's what I said.”
I sighed. “Right.”
We were in my kitchen having tea and oatmeal cookies, which my mother had baked with Sam that morning. My son loves cooking with his Bobba Sarah.
My mother had dropped by tonight after her meeting at the Holocaust Museum. I'd already put Sam to bed. I brewed tea while she told me about her day.
I'd been on edge all day thinking about the upcoming event at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. I'd given Bertie my cell phone number and made him promise to call me as soon as they made the arrest.
“So this Warner, he's not the one you thought,” my mother said.
“I was a little surprised. Apparently, so was Stanley.”
“Oh?”
I explained the strict confidentiality rule I'd given Rebeccaâno communications the government might trace.
“She sent me a text message last night. Three words:
S is skeptical
.”
“S?”
“Stanley. I sent her back one word:
Noted
. She sent another text this morning. Two words:
Very skeptical
. I sent back the same one-word response.”
I poured us each some more tea.
My mother said, “So you thought the bad guy was Len Olsen?”
“He just seemed more suspicious. But if you assume that Sari's death was connected to the schemeâthat she found out and posed too much of a threatâthen I suppose Olsen is in the clear.”
“Explain that again.”
“He wasn't in the parking garage that night.”
“How do the police know that?”
“Computer records. You need to use your cardkey to go from the building to the garage after seven. The computer recorded every user that night. He didn't use his.”
“Is that something new?”
“No, Mom. It's been around for a long time. Back when Benny and I were associates at Abbott & Windsor in Chicago, the firm had offices on ten floors, but the only public entrance was on the main floor with the receptionists. The entrances to the other floors were locked. If your office was on that floor, the only way you could open the door was with your cardkey.”
“I had no idea.”
I smiled. “We assumed that the firm kept track of who stayed late and who came in on Saturdays. That why we made sure we each used our own cardkey late at night, even if we were together and didn'tâ¦oh, my God.”
“What?”
“Oh, my God.” I leaned back in my chair, my mind racing. “He
could
have been there that night.”
“Who?”
“How did I miss that?”
“How did you miss what?”
“The cardkey. If two or three people are together, they don't each need to use their cardkey. All you need is for one to open the door and hold it for the others. We did that all the time at Abbott & Windsor when more than one of us got off the elevator in the morning or after lunch.”
I paused, trying to visualize that night in the crosswalk.
“Olsen could have walked out with anyone,” I said. “Especially Sari. She was the only one parked on that floor. He could have walked her to her car, maybe trying to convince her not to tell anyone.”
“But he's not the one flying to Detroit, right?”
“True. The feds are monitoring all the airlines. If he were flying anywhere, there'd be a record of itâ¦unless⦔
“Unless what?”
“Unless there isn't a record.”
“What do you mean?”
“There wouldn't be a record if he isn't flying commercial.”
“How could that be?”
“The law firm owns a plane. Olsen's a pilot. He flies his trial teams to out-of-state courts.”
“But wouldn't there still be a record of where he's going to fly it?”
“I doubt it. I don't think you have to file a flight plan with anyone.”
I checked my watch: 8:05.
I stood as I tried to formulate some sort of plan. I thought back to that photograph in Olsen's office, the one with him posed in front of the Cessna jet. I tried to visualize it, to remember the sign in the background.
VALLEY PARK AIRPORT
“Mom, can you stay with Sam until I get back?”
“Where do you think you are going, young lady?”
“I'm not sure.”
“You should call the police.”
“I will. But I'm going to head out there just in case.”
“Just in case what?”
I shook my head. “I don't know.”
“Rachel, you're not a cop.”
“I know, I know.” I grabbed my purse. “I'm not going to do anything crazy. I promise.”
“
This
is crazy.”
“Don't yell. You'll wake Sam.”
I walked over to the back door. “I'll call you. I promise.”
“He's a man, Rachel. He's bigger than you. What if he really did push that poor girl off the garage?”
I stared at my mother, a smile forming on my lips. “Good point.”
I walked over to the stairs to the second floor.
“Yadi,” I called in a soft voice.
I heard a slight rustling, and then Yadi appeared at the top of the stairs, his tail wagging.
“Come here, boy.”
He clambered down the stairs and sat at my feet.
I patted him on the head. “I need a bodyguard. You game?”
He barked once and followed me back into the kitchen, where I took the leash off the hook.
I gave my mother a wink. “No one's going to mess with me now.”
“You call me, Rachel.”
I opened the back door. “I promise.”
“I love you, darling girl.”
“I love you, Mom.”
It was a thirty-minute drive to Valley Park Airport, home base to many of the corporate jets and other private planes of St. Louis. I tried to reach Bertie Tomaso four different ways on the drive. I didn't know his cell phone number, so first I called his office phone, listened to his out-of-office greeting, and left a message with little hope that he would hear it before tomorrow. Then I called police headquarters and tried to urge a particularly apathetic desk sergeant to contact Bertie and have him call me ASAP. Then I called 911, explained that Detective Tomaso was on a stakeout at Lambert Airport, and asked the operator to have him call me on my cell. That was an especially frustrating call. The 911 operator had no idea who Detective Tomaso was. It took me a moment to realize that my call had been answered by the 911 operator in the suburban town near the highway I was on. I explained to her that Bertie was a St. Louis homicide detective and that it was urgent that he call me ASAP. My cell phone dropped that call before she responded, though presumably her phone had a record of my cell phone number. Last, I called Bertie's home number, hoping to reach his wife Sue, but got their answering machine. I left a message for Sue to have Bertie call me on my cell ASAP.
As I took the exit for the Valley Park Airport, I was still trying to come up with a plan. I had driven there on pure conjecture. It was certainly possible, even probable, that Donald Warner was the ringleader and that the FBI had correctly scoped his escape plan. His specialty, after all, was international corporate finance, and he was definitely in the parking garage the night she died. And maybe some of that Structured Resolutions money had been funneled into that Moral Majority 501(c)(4) outfit in Illinois.
But it also seemed just as possible that the whole Donald Warner airline ticket scenario was a ruse designed to misdirect law-enforcement attention toward Lambert International Airport while twenty-miles to the south a private plane would be taxiing down the runway on the first leg of a journey that required no flight plan, no ticket purchase, and no publicly available information.
And what if I was right? What if Len Olsen was here? What then?
Maybe the best strategy would be to hide until he took off and then try again to contact Bertie. Once he was in the air, he'd be on someone's radar. Literally.
Not much of a plan
, I conceded.
I turned onto Airport Boulevard. There were no street lamps. I drove slowly in the darkness toward what appeared to be a two-story air traffic control tower in the distance off to the left. I turned left at the three-way intersection, where the road sign arrow pointed toward AIRPORT. About a hundred yards further down, the road ended in a small parking lot surrounded by a chain-link fence. As I pulled into the lot, I counted five other cars.
I parked in a front-row space facing the chain-link fence and the runway beyond, which ran perpendicular left to right in front of me. It was illuminated by a row of embedded lights running down the middle and bright yellow stripes painted along both sides the entire length.
As I shifted into Park, a twin-engine plane landed, coming in from the left and taxiing past me, its propellers a blur. I shut off the engine and turned toward Yadi, who was seated alongside me, eyes alert.
“Ready?”
He rose into a crouch, his tail wagging. I took the leash, snapped it onto his collar, and opened my door. He followed me out, scrambling down from the car.
It was a chilly night. I stashed my purse under the front seat, zipped up my fleece jacket, put my cell phone in one pocket, closed the car door, and put the car keys in the other pocket.
I glanced around. The other five cars were dark and empty. I looked down at Yadi, who was seated on the asphalt and staring up at me.
“Let's do it.”
We walked along the fence to the gate, which was open. We stepped through the gate and onto the concrete walkway that runs the length of the runway. On the far side and facing the runway stood a long line of hangarsâat least forty. Between the hangars and the runway on that side was a wide, paved taxiway. About half of the hangar doors were open, their interiors unlit. It was a cloudy night. The only illumination came from a series of tall arc lights facing the hangars and spaced about every three hangars. A few were burned out or turned off, leaving just enough light to make out the dark shapes of the airplanes inside some of the open hangars across from us.
The twin-engine plane that had landed moments before had turned off the runway at the far end and was now taxiing back in our direction, moving along the row of hangars. We watched in the darkness as it passed by and eventually stopped outside a hangar near the other end. I could hear the engines turn off, but it was too far away to see the propellers stop spinning.
I stared at the darkened hangers directly across from us, looking for any movement.
Nothing.
We were largely hidden in the night. The best option seemed to be to start at one end and move down the line of hangars, cautiously, one by one. Hopefully, I told myself, we'll confirm that there's nothing suspicious going on out here.
“Let's go,” I whispered to Yadi.
We headed down the walkway toward the end of the runway and then we crossed over. We slowly approached the first hangar, which was open and empty. There was a door on the left front corner of the hangar, and the sign on the door read:
HANGAR 41B
SULLIVAN COAL INC.
The next hangar was closed. The sign on the door read:
HANGAR 40B
SMILOW PRODUCTIONS LLC
The next one was open, a small corporate jet parked inside. The sign on the door read:
HANGAR 39B
LANDAU, MURPHY & MORAN LTD.
We kept moving, slowly, carefully, hangar by hangar. About eight doors further down, Yadi halted, his body rigid.
“What?” I whispered, my own body tensing.
He was staring into the empty hangar as he made a soft growling sound. I held my breath and peered in. I could see nothing. Then I heard a scurrying noise from inside.
“Come on,” I whispered, tugging on his leash. “Probably just a rat.”
As we passed the parking area, which was now on the far side of the runway, I heard the distant sound of two men talking. We ducked into an open hangar. They were coming down the walkway along the runway. One was carrying what looked like a briefcase and the other had on a backpack. From what I could make it out, they were talking about last week's Rams football game.
I watched as they walked into the parking area and got into an SUV. A moment later the engine started and the headlights came on. The vehicle backed out of its space, turned, and headed out of the parking area. They must have been on the plane that had landed just as we parked.
When the SUV's taillights disappeared into the darkness, we stepped out of the hangar. I paused to check my cell phone. No messages. I shook my head.
C'mon, Bertie.
***
It happened suddenly.
We had passed three hangars and had just reached the next one, open and dark, when Yadi leaped forward and started barking. I glanced at the door on the other side of the hangar: WARNER & OLSEN LLP.
From inside the hangar a familiar voice called, “Hello?”
I heard a metallic clatter, and then the sound of somethingâa small steel doorâopening and closing.
Out of the darkness stepped Len Olsen. He squinted at me in the dim light.
“Rachel?”
He was in jeans and a dark leather jacket, hands in the jacket pockets.
Yadi was growling now. I pulled him toward me. “Sit.”
He did.
Olsen said, “What are you doing here, Rachel?”
“What are
you
doing here?”
He nodded toward the hangar. “This is the firm's plane.”
“That wasn't my question.”
“Answer mine first. What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.”
“Why me?”
“You know why.”
There was a moment's silence, and then he chuckled.
“Who exactly do you think you are?” he said. “Mrs. Dirty Harry?”
“I'm not here about the money, Len.”
“No?”
“You want to rob from the rich? That's between you and them.”
He grinned. “They can afford it. Back to my question. Why are you here?”
“Sari Bashir.”
He stared at me.
“Why'd you kill her, Len?”
“Rachel, Rachel,” he said, shaking his head as if speaking to a child. “The police ruled it a suicide.”
I needed to keep him talking, hoping that maybe by now Bertie would have received one of my messages, that maybe, just maybe, the cavalry was finally on its way.
“I asked you a question, Len. Why did you kill her? Had she figured out your scheme?”
He was silent.
“Was she going to turn you in?”
No response.
“Pushing her out of a parking garage?” I said. “That was your plan?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why?”
He shrugged. “I guess you could call it spur of the moment.”
“I'd call it murder.”
“Whatever.”
I said, “And she wasn't the first, was she?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I'm talking about.”
After a moment, he said, “An unfortunate hunting accident. Happens every year.”
He took a step toward me. “While I'd love to stand here and chat, I need to be on my way.”
He pulled his right hand out of the jacket.
I was staring at a handgun aimed at me.
“We'll make this quick and painless,” he said, lowering the gun toward Yadi. “First your dog.”
I stepped in front of Yadi and lowered my hand to where the leash was clipped onto the collar.
“You'll have to shoot me first” I said, my voice unsteady, my hand shaking. “When you do, my dog will make you pay.”
And then, from somewhere in the darkness, came a familiar nasal voice.
“Mr. Olsen,” the voice announced, “your reference to that 1971 motion picture is both apposite and ironic.”
Still pointing the gun at me, Olsen jerked his head toward where the voice seemed to be coming from, which was behind him to the left.
I scanned the darkness in disbelief.
Stanley Plotkin?
“Look back at Ms. Gold,” Stanley commanded.
Olsen turned slowly toward me.
“Now, sir,” Stanley continued, “lower your gaze. You will see a red dot on your chest hovering directly over your heart.”
Olsen did as commanded. There was indeed a bright red dot on his chest.
“That is from a laser sight, sir. It is affixed to a loaded rifle now in possession of an experienced hunter prepared to pull the trigger should you make any rapid motion. I will shortly commence the standard countdown. If you have not set your pistol on the ground in front of you and placed your hands behind your head by the time I reach zero, sir, you will experience what you have represented to Ms. Gold as quick and painless. While I am not sufficiently versed in neuroscience to attest to the painless element, I can assure you that it will be quick. In the interim, be advised that the appropriate law-enforcement officials have been notified. If you listen carefully, sir, you will discern the sounds of their approach.”
Stanley paused. I could hear the distant wail of sirens and a deep fluttering noise from somewhere above us to the east.
“Thus,” Stanley continued, “to paraphrase Detective Harry Callahan in the motion picture you referenced, as you stare at that red dot on your chest, you've got to ask yourself a question, Mr. Olsen: âDo I feel lucky?' Well, do you, punk?”
